I sent around Harvard history professor Jill Lepore's article on contagion experiences and fiction. Whether it is the Black Death/bubonic plague or COVID-19, people have faced a silent disease spreading among them before. From at least as far back as 1347, quiet, poorly understood maladies have spread among people. Sometimes, "plague" refers to other problems, such as hordes of grasshoppers, locusts or birds that descend on crops and eat them.
When I was a kid, polio was very much in the news. I was afraid of it. I imagine there are experts and books and papers about the psychology of diseases. Polio, like coronavirus-19, was sneaky and dangerous. When something I don't like happens to me, I may believe that I did something bad to deserve divine punishment. I may believe that you did something that brought the problem onto me.
I have read that the ancient Aztecs killed people because they believed that the Sun God needed such sacrifices and their own lives would fail or be quite miserable unless they did so. It is relatively easy for the human mind to latch onto supernatural explanations when natural ones are missing or incomplete. The well-known short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1948), often assigned as high school literature, refers to a fictitious town that practices human sacrifice. Why - because we always have and because it is good for us.
I talked to my nephew in Texas and to my lunch friends online today. I have seen several articles about the business cost of home quarantine as well as the strong social desire to see each other. Many businesses in my town are trying to modify their practice to deliver their product to customers waiting outside in their cars or by delivery trucks to homes.
