The Eternal Epidemic

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After almost 300 years, Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the most Remarkable Occurrences, as well Publick as Private, which happened in London during the Last Great Visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen who continued all the while in London. Never made public before (1722), exhibits striking parallels with the Covid 19 pandemic—which is not yet over. As of today, the Covid 19 pandemic is going on two years. The government's health response has barely slackened. The public—those not afflicted—has become accustomed to it. Defoe's history serves as a reminder how used to dire conditions we have become.

It gives one a feeling of having been here before. We have come far, since the initial panic swept the world and—as those who forget the past are fated to repeat it—life goes on without any assurance of being prepared should it return.  Not everyone fails to see the approach of danger—or faulted for being slow to react. Upon first reports of plague in London, those who could, fled the city. Likewise, in late January of 2020 a “travel ban” was implemented in the U.S.A. after report of the first confirmed case within its borders. 

Normal trade was interrupted rapidly in both epidemics. In the U.S.A., supply shortages were common. In both epidemics, everyday commerce was suspected of transmission. Mainland China was identified as the origin of the pathogen, a virus, designated Covid 19. Most of the epidemics that progress at geometric rates are endemic animal diseases that, when leaping to human hosts, are met with an ineffective immune system. When Defoe wrote, domestic livestock was free to graze the public byways. It is doubtful Defoe, as everyone of his day, imagined it is possible to get sick from an animal.

Defoe's History is a reconstruction based on literature available at the time. His work is not scientific—but it is readable. It is a classic. The modern science of virology is difficult enough for the news-reading public to understand, and such peer-reviewed papers as are written with the average reader in mind are often contradictory. It is a competitive field jealous for funding. The morbidity data is always tedious. Defoe included numerical lists of the epidemic's progress, as it advances, then pauses, then leaps again—as if to make up for the delay. The public is dumbfounded.

Government measures to quarantine meet public resistance. Measures implemented in the London plague were as draconian as possible in a culture that had not put the Dark Ages very far behind. Government is political, not scientific, and can be expected to be ineffective. One cannot but make up one's own mind as to which protective health measures to implement. Defoe observed that by fully isolating oneself transmission may be avoided. Individual perception of what exposes to infection and what protects is decisive. 

Defoe relates numerous instances of the suffering of the victims of the plague. As a writer of non-fiction, he may be expected to accentuate the human toll. Personal experiences of hardship caused by the Covid 19 epidemic has, for many, reached the saturation point. Nothing can be done. It is a phenomenon of nature—at least. No one today calls it an act of God, unlike the outbreak of fanatics in the 17th Century. Those who pray today reserve a prudent silence. It can only be reasonably expected of one to take care of one's inner circle—first.

The graphic art of Brian Higgins can be viewed at: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/8-brian-higgins
One-of-a-kind works of art can be viewed at: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1840403

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