Caleb Bond: Just a month ago we were all full bottle on the #BookThemOut campaign

Country communities are going to be hammered in the economic fallout from coronavirus, writes Caleb Bond. And we’ll all be poorer if we forget about their latest calamity.

• Centrelink surge breaks down Telstra, Optus services
• Check out these subscriber-only specials, giveaways and prizes

Spare a thought for regional and rural Australians right now.

Large parts of the country were brought to their knees over summer thanks to bushfires.

Now they have coronavirus to contend with.

Being the fool I am, I took off for Sydney – where my girlfriend lives and works – by car on Sunday morning.

I figured that if I’m going to bunker down for a while, I may as well do it with her. And you couldn’t pay me to go near the airport.

Little did I know the restrictions that would follow later that afternoon. Unfortunately for you lot, I can still work in quarantine.

But, as I drove through the Riverland, into Sunraysia, across the Hay Plains and down the Hume Highway, I was struck by how devastated all these small towns will be due to border restrictions – right across the country.

The now-closed pub is the epicentre of most country towns. It’s their gathering spot – how they stay connected with the community. Gone.

And also gone are the hordes of people that pass through these towns every day on their way to somewhere else.

There would be thousands of small country shops across Australia that are only viable because tourists stop in to buy a snack or drink or some other souvenir of their travels. Gone.

And by nature of their isolation, looking for more work on the other side of this mess is not easy. They can’t just get a job at Marion and drive down from Blair Athol. Their only chance of re-employment might be hours away.

Whenever something hurts people in the city, it inevitably hurts people in the country threefold. But we sometimes get so caught up in our troubles that we don’t stop to think of theirs.

There would be entire country towns where almost no one can work from home. Their general stores and the like may be able to get by on the 200-odd people who live around them, but only just.

There has been plenty of talk about casinos and gyms, but I’ve barely seen a whisper about the devastation that is about to be unleashed on country towns.

Towns will grind to a near-complete halt without visitors. As much as these border controls are necessary, it will kill so much else in the process.

Just a month ago we were all full bottle on the “#BookThemOut” campaign. We knew how destructive bushfires would be to places like Kangaroo Island that subsist largely on tourism dollars. Those problems have not gone away. They’re getting worse.

Unfortunately, for a lot of people who run businesses providing services to visitors, this will spell their end. And that means the economic damage will be felt long after the virus has subsided.

Country folk too often get a raw deal from their city masters, who sometimes believe they possess superiority.

If it weren’t for all the people keeping these country towns alive, so city people can pass through them and have somewhere to eat and fill up their car, we’d be stuffed.

Without the agricultural workers and businesses based around these towns, Australia would grind to a halt – particularly when we are all apparently deadset on emptying the shelves.

We are all, of course, thinking about coronavirus in selfish terms. We all want to protect ourselves. But we cannot forget our brothers in regional and rural Australia who will likely be doing it even tougher.

Thankfully, bushies possess extraordinary spirit and positivity – the kind we’ll all need to adopt if we want to get through this without being utterly soul destroyed.

You won’t find happier or friendlier people than those in shops dotted around our country towns or working on the land.

They are resilient and resourceful. And they love their fellow Australians.

They are fundamentally trusting and friendly people. We must ensure we do not betray that trust.

When all this passes over – whenever that may be – we must make sure we #BookThemOut again.

Don’t let them down in their hour of need – because they’d never let you down.