This prequel begins with the words of Albert Camus, who started writing his book The Plague in 1941, as the world was stumbling into WWII. The book documents an imagined pestilence that quarantines the city of Oran in Algeria and results in a variety of responses from its citizenry.
“There have been many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared. [...] When a war breaks out people say: 'It won't last, it's too stupid.' And war is certainly too stupid, but that doesn't prevent it from lasting. Stupidity always carries doggedly on, as people would notice if they were not always thinking about themselves. In this respect, the citizens of Oran were like the rest of the world, they thought about themselves...
― Albert Camus, The Plague
In late December 2019, Judy Woodruff told me that a wildlife market in Wuhan, China was believed to be the source of an unusual virus in humans. On January 15th, an infected Wuhan resident arrived in Washington State where he soon felt sick enough to check into a hospital. On January 21st, the CDC announced this first confirmed US case.
On January 3rd In a parallel world, Nick Schifron informed me that the US assassinated Iranian Soleimani, and I cringed as Trump escalated tensions with his trash talk. An Iranian missile launch results in “just some mild headaches” for our troops in Iraq. An innocent civilian airplane is collateral damage; 176 are killed. Sanctions and accusations fly. The news cycle moves on. On February 19th, Iran reported their first Covid-19 case that will soon result in cabinet members appearing visibly sick on tv.
And, in case you forgot, on January 16th Lisa Desjardin started her play by play as the Senate began trial proceedings for Trump’s impeachment that ended with an equital on February 5th. Don’t worry. He won’t feel emboldened. We all watched as he fired impeachment witness Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and began to pardon his friends.
In mid-January I started a job at Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I checked the Washington Post and CNN in the quiet times between calls and emails. I watched an impressive time-lapse video of how Wuhan built a 1000-bed hospital in 10 days, but mainly I was obsessed with the Democratic primaries. Tamara Keith and Amy Walters reported on the chaos in Iowa, the defeat of Biden in NH, his win in South Carolina and then the rally behind Biden as we entered Super Tuesday on March 3.
By the week of March 9, news of the Democratic contest dropped below the fold and my office at Harvard led the drumbeat of universities moving their coursework online and sending the students home. A typical Trump comment from March 10 was “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
When the stock market began to spiral, and confirmed cases hit Mar-a-Lago, even this White House had to face some facts. Thank God for Dr. Fauci. Yamiche Alcindor now brings nightly updates from a leader who insists on calling the sickness the Chinese virus and announces the “exciting” delivery of a hospital ship to New York Harbor (now not expected until April) as if it is a surprise development in a reality show.
Back to Camus...
in other words, they were humanists: they did not believe in pestilence. A pestilence does not have human dimensions, so people tell themselves that it is unreal, that it is a bad dream which will end. But it does not always end and, from one bad dream to the next, it is people who end, humanists first of all because they have not prepared themselves.
― Albert Camus, The Plague