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The plague and the plague

2020-04-21T03:22:11.239Z


298 years ago a book was published that this coronavirus nightmare has brought up to date, “Diary of the Year of the Plague”.


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Camilo's note: the plague and the plagued 1:45

Editor's Note: Camilo Egaña is Camilo's driver . The opinions expressed in this article are exclusive to the author.

(CNN) - Daniel Defoe is known as the author of "Robinson Crusoe".

But 298 years ago, he published another book that this coronavirus nightmare has brought up to date, “Diary of the Year of the Plague”.

It is a novel but, at the same time, it is the closest thing to a report.

It tells how London suffered the scourge of the bubonic plague.

Incidentally, London was a brutally divided city for political reasons. Does that sound familiar to you or not?

Defoe describes it all with terrifying hyper-realistic minuteness.

There is an especially disturbing passage, when desperate people put aside their class and creed differences and gather in churches where, Defoe says, "they no longer wondered who was sitting near or far from them, what disgusting smells they found or what was their state of health ”.

Of course, when the plague disappeared, everyone was back to what they always were.

The 17th century plague failed to make humans better. And history proves it.

I suppose that in a few years, when someone tells what we now live, he will stop at what certain pathologically dishonest and incompetent politicians produced in certain citizens. In the fear they added to our lives with their squeaky and superfluous talk. Let those who tell it, do it with the thoroughness of Daniel Defoe, to see if for the next pandemic we have learned the lesson.

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-04-21

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