The Italian novelist wrote an open letter to the UK about the upcoming coronaviruses. The Melandri area of Rome had been under a three week curfew and the cemeteries in Lombardy had run out of plots. Melandri said that we were a few steps ahead of you in the path of time. "You will hold the same arguments we did until a short time ago, between those who still say 'it's only a flu, why all the fuss' and those who have already understood"
Melandri's predictions were correct. Some commentators argued that Covid-19 was not worse than the swine flu, despite the fact that British ICU wards were filled with coronaviruses. Others grasping the importance of the situation offered to get the shopping in for elderly neighbours while cursing panic buyers and joggers who refused to keep their distance.
The early days of lock down were challenging but also precious. New possibilities opened as modernity slowed. With our workaday lives stilled by the coronapause, we had time to reflect and imagine a better future for our children.
At that time, that was the case. We find ourselves consumed by a succession of political and economic crises now that Covid is no longer on the front pages. Is the epidemic over or is it just an interruption before the virus comes back?
Covid-19 has not gone away but continues to be a source of considerable hassle and misery for those unlucky to end up in hospital. Despite hopes that herd immunity would have kicked in by now, the US is in the midst of its fourth-biggest Covid surge, while Portugal has registered an astonishing 2,447 new cases per million people.
Is the pandemic over or is this merely an intermission before the virus mutates again?
These figures would make us pause once more in a world that had absorbed the lessons of previous waves. Instead, we think of making up for lost beach time by going to airports that have been crippled by worker shortages and rushing back to half-empty offices just in case. Studies show that hybrid working is more productive. The powers that are determined to call time on work from home now that the Coronapause is over. The long Covid is not over for two million Britons. The government's failure to lock down sooner can't be forgotten by those who have lost a loved one to the virus. Until the long-awaited public inquiry into the Pandemic has delivered its verdict, relatives can't move on.
In the rush to forget, it's important to remember that our experiences are available to future generations. We didn't pay enough attention to how societies had used similar measures at other times and places, which is why we were so unprepared for Covid-19. Since 1377, when the city of Dubrovnik banned travellers from plague-infested areas, the response to epidemics has remained the same. We couldn't imagine the same thing happening here when we saw the pictures from the two previous places.
The same mistake must not be made again. To ensure our memories and experiences are available to future generations, the Science Museum has begun collecting objects and artifacts from the Pandemic and is currently displaying the lectern from the Downing Street press conference.
When we saw the pictures from Wuhan and later Bergamo, we could not imagine the same thing might happen here
The museum has done a poor job of documenting previous Pandemics, like the 1918 Spanish flu, which swept around the globe in successive waves. Some scientists think that the 1889-92 Russian flu epidemic may have been wrongly attributed to flu and may also have been caused by a coronaviruses.
The final years of Queen Victoria's rule coincide with the first reported outbreak of the Russian flu.
Four million people in England and Wales were affected by the first wave of illness. The Spanish flu was over in a year, but the Russian flu came back again and again. The Russian flu made people from all social classes sick, including the archbishop of York and the grandson of Queen Victoria. The Pandemic caused strange nervous illnesses and fatigue states reminiscent of long Covid. The Victorian nerve doctors blamed "overwork" and "over-worry" for the fatigue states being psychosomatic.
The image of a nation of convalescents, too debilitated to work or return to daily routines and plagued by mysterious neurological symptoms, became central to the period's medical and cultural iconography. The Russian flu had left the European world's nerves and spirits in a worse state than it found them, and that they barely yet have recovered their natural tone, according to Thomas Clouston.
As we toast the Queen this weekend, we should not be in too much of a hurry to get back to business as usual, but we should remember what the Coronapause taught us about our anxious present and the possibilities for human flourishing in the future.
Melandri wrote a letter from Italy. We can only tell you that when all of this is over, the world won't be the same.
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