Before covid-19 gripped the globe, images of Australia ablaze had the world transfixed. The place many call “the lucky country” looked as if it was being razed to the ground.

While the country will not recover quickly from these fires – which claimed the lives of 34 people and more than a billion animals, as well as destroying more than 3,500 homes and thousands of other buildings – the effort has begun and is expected to cost hundreds of millions of Australian dollars.

Rebuilding after such a disaster was never going to be easy. But then on 25 January Australia reported its first coronavirus case, and 47 days later the country went into lockdown. How does a country rebuild itself while in the midst of a global pandemic?

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