This latest COVID-19 dispatch is from Australia, where like most places across the world, there is a cognitive dissonance when it comes to being urged to stay at home when, in fact, you don’t have a home to go to.

Viarama, an Edinburgh-based social enterprise that uses virtual reality for social good, aims to give people from all walks of life the opportunity to experience reality virtually. From helping those suffering from debilitating health conditions see where their wedding took place to using a different approach when teaching students with learning difficulties, Viarama is constantly finding new ways to use virtual reality to help their community.

With The Big Issue no longer able to have its vendors sell the magazine on the street, the great majority have seen their usual way of earning an income vanish overnight. Here, they describe how the coronavirus lockdown is going to affect them.

Quiver Watts, editor of San Francisco’s Street Sheet, writes that the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak not only poses a greater risk to the city’s population living in poverty, but argues that they will be made “a convenient scapegoat to take attention off the real failures in the city’s emergency response”.

As recovery support groups across the US cancel and move online due to COVID-19 measures, an increase in relapses could compound demands on health care providers.

Italy is in nationwide lockdown, effectively quarantining its entire population in a bid to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Inside the initial red zone of the northern region of Lombardy sits the city of Milan, where Italian street paper Scarp de’ tenis is based. The magazine’s editor Stefano Lampertico writes vividly of life under lockdown for the publication and the vendors it serves.

Israel Bayer, director of INSP North America, provides context for why the official response to the coronavirus outbreak in the region is failing those who are homeless and living in poverty, and writes about why systemic injustices mean that, amidst this health crisis, that community is being left behind.

Street Roots executive director Kaia Sand sends a dispatch from Oregon after visiting a small homeless camp housing a handful of the Portland street paper’s vendors who have become proactive about safeguarding themselves and staying healthy as the coronavirus panic sweeps the Pacific Northwest United States.

As the impact of the coronavirus spreads further around the world, guidance has been put in place for how to prevent it spreading and what to do if you suspect you have contracted it. However, rough sleepers cannot safeguard themselves in the same ways the general public can. The Big Issue spoke to homeless shelters and other front-line service providers to find out what plans they have in place.

Thi Nhin Nguyen arrived in Germany from Vietnam in 1995 and later moved to Salzburg, Austria, where she works as an Apropos vendor. She has built a life for herself in Salzburg and is happy in her work as a vendor, as it enables her to earn an income and to interact with her customers. Her life is one filled with hard work, caring for others and song.

His name is Somadina Ifesinachi Okoye, but everyone calls him Kenneth. When he came to Austria in 2015 and began working as a vendor for the street paper marie, Kenneth quickly befriended Elsbeth Gaisbauer, who became like an adopted grandmother to him. Now, Kenneth is preparing to return to his home country of Nigeria, leaving behind Elsbeth, now 89. marie met the two for one last interview together.

You never see Rikke without Lukas. Rikke, an =Oslo vendor, is always in the company of her beloved husky, who is her constant companion. Rikke credits Lukas with helping her to navigate the most difficult challenges that she has faced. Now that Rikke has overcome her addiction to heroin, the pair are making the most of the joys that life can offer.