Our economy is in a battle for survival and the retail sector is its frontline - Mark Casci

While there may be no fighter jets or tanks deployed there are very much casualties.

It is a war that now has a front in the majority of nations. The daily death toll from coronavirus has risen from a chilling handful of cases in the UK to a daily figure so large it sends a collective chill through the nation’s psyche.

The battle analogies continue at every turn.

Our medics and key workers continue to fight on a day-to-day basis to keep us safe and fed. The daily tales of horror and heroism from our nation’s hospitals are a stark reminder of the phenomenal value that the NHS, our greatest national public asset, delivers for us each day. We cannot and must not ever take it for granted ever again once this is over.

Emergency services are fighting with having to remind a careless minority of the imperative importance of staying home unless venturing outside for reasons spelt out in the very clear Government guidelines.

And, of course, our nation’s businesses and economy are in a raging battle to keep the United Kingdom afloat.

Those not afforded the relative luxury of being able to work from home are having to adopt to social distancing rules in their places of work.

These plans have had to have been drafted up in a matter of hours in some cases.

However, for many areas of our economy, the restrictions on movement have left their businesses simply not viable.

This past few days has seen both Carluccio’s and Debenhams brought to the brink of collapse, the second time in just 12 months for the latter.

The physical retail sector had been in crisis even before the first cases of Covid were identified in Wuhan.

Now, it is positively on the frontlines of the battle to save our national economy.

The coronavirus crisis will, quite simply, lay waste to a fair chunk of our high streets. Faced with an indefinite cessation of activities, many will founder.

Many will resort to an online only model. There will be successes and failures on this front and, of course, many organisations will thrive under the lockdown. British commerce has lit up the world for centuries and faced more severe existential threats than this. It is far from the end of days many gloomy forecasters have been positing.

However, with hundreds of thousands of staff facing being furloughed, taking a pay cut or laid off altogether, the reality is the appetite for consumer spending on non-essentials has not been this low for a generation.

While there is almost certainly likely to be a sharp uptick in the purchase of new household goods, meals out and travel once the virus is brought under control for many it will be too late before these taps of spending are finally turned back on again.

The inevitable downside of capitalism is how utterly unforgiving it will be to enterprises whose basic model and purpose is weak and not fit for purpose.

The shutdown will be too much to bear for those who were already struggling. The best many can hope for is to emerge from it in zombie mode, lurching from one month to another in desperate hope of salvation. Few of these will survive either. Sunday night saw another invaluable national asset deployed.

Her Majesty the Queen’s address brought comfort and resolve into the hearts off millions of Britons.

As someone who has manifested the very best virtues of duty her entire life she too evoked wartime imagery, reminding us that we have a part to play in getting through this crisis.

Retailers who moved with the times, shored up liquidity and offered consumers a proposition in tune with the current zeitgeist will prevail.

Those who clung to the old days will find themselves consigned to the history books.

When the reconstruction of our global economy begins it will be much more forward-thinking and compassionate. And it will be built by those who were imbued with the Queen’s sense of duty.

This is the only way we emerge from this battle victorious.