Posted by Steven on 19/7/2011, 8:13:44, in reply to "Re: Journal of the Plague Year"
76.186.51.185
Still only two of us have finished this short book? Has a plague struck our membership? 
Here's a question even those who haven't read the book can speak on: How would a modern great city respond to an incurable plague that killed one sixth of the population in a single season? In London in 1665 the civil authority continued to function, the sick were cared for (after a fashion), the dead buried, the living fed. Even though commerce came to a complete halt, there was no financial crisis, and, as the narrator marvels, the price of food did not even rise.
In the metro area where I live, a plague on the scale of London's would result in a million deaths. I can't imagine anything less than a complete breakdown of social order under such conditions. People aren't conditioned to accept such a risk without panic, and our infrastructure is too fragile to function with such a disruption.
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