"Please maintain a social distance of at least six feet," the drone intoned, according to a report from CBS News, continuing with gloomy warnings, like "please help stop the spread of this virus" and "reduce the death toll and help save lives."

It wasn't a police drone. Was it a vigilante drone or an aerial white knight? Was it friend or foe?

That's a highly relevant question about drones in general, which are suddenly everywhere during the coronavirus crisis, taking over any number of human tasks as people hunker indoors.

Drones have been working as police officers, soaring over the banks of the Seine in Paris and the city squares of Mumbai, to patrol for social distancing violators.

They're delivering medical supplies in Rwanda and snacks in Virginia. They're hovering over crowds China to scan for fevers below.

Coronavirus has been devastating to humans, but may well prove a decisive step toward a long-prophesied Drone Age, when aerial robots begin to shed their Orwellian image as tools of war and surveillance and become a common feature of daily life, serving as helpers and, perhaps soon, companions.