10 April

Camus' wonderful novel is the bible on pandemics. Nearly a century old now but reading it is like reading the paper here in 2020, and novelists go way beyond the medical angle to the deep human psychology. How authorities initially respond by thinking the most important thing is to encourage people to be 'calm', and to introduce only minor restrictions so that peoples' way of life isn't too badly affected. Camus points out that's human vanity at its finest, assuming the world revolves around humans and their needs. And how the virus continues on its exponential way underneath all that stupidity, eventually forcing lockdowns that should have happened on day 1. The same stupid patterns recur for every plague.