The coronavirus pandemic and lockdown has bought the nation closer together, according to a study by the Office for National Statistics.
The UK's official statistics body found people in the North East believe the country will be more united as a result of the pandemic.
And they also think the UK will be a kinder place.
Coronavirus has caused 2,134 deaths in North East alone up to August 14, according to official figures.
The figures include Newcastle, Gatshead, Sunderland, County Durham, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Northumberland.
In addition, many people have lost their jobs or seen their income cut.
However, experts investigating how the experience has changed our lives have discovered there may also have been some silver linings.
Asked whether they thought the country was united or divided before the coronavirus outbreak, 53% of people questioned in the North East said the nation was divided, while just 25% said it was united. Others said it was somewhere in the middle.
But asked what they believed the nation would be like once this pandemic is over, 31% said it would be divided while 52% said it would be united.
Perhaps it has something to do with the way people have responded to the health crisis. The statisticians found 44% felt people in the UK where generally kind to each other before coronavirus struck, but 63% believed the UK would be a kind place afterwards.
Just over half the population nationally said they had checked on a neighbour to make sure they were okay within the past seven days. And more than eight in 10 said they felt confident that members of their local community would support them if they needed help during the pandemic.
However, experts found that people's faith that the pandemic would make the country a better place had fallen since it began.
Dawn Snape, assistant director in the Sustainability and Inequalities Division of the Office for National Statistics, said: "Today’s research shows that earlier in the national lockdown, people believed that a post-pandemic Britain would be a more united one.
“However, over subsequent weeks, this belief declined. Most people also expected that inequalities in society would remain.
"But interestingly, there is still a belief that we will be a kind nation, perhaps because of the many stories of individual kindness we have heard or experienced over this time"
Other studied have highlighted the negative impact of the pandemic on the nation, in addition to the obvious health and economic effects. They have warned the people's mental health has suffered, and some people even started drinking more.
