In this morning’s paper: “The 2020 Oregon State Fair, set to run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7, has been canceled due to extended state restrictions on mass gatherings. In Thursday’s announcement, Gov. Kate Brown said the mass gatherings are prohibited through September.”

And a friend who attended my church choir Zoom gathering this week reported that after a big webinar for choral conductors, our choirmaster has concluded that Trinity Choir will not reconvene until there is a vaccine for COVID-19. 

So it’s going to be a while, and these blog posts have unintentionally become my own pathetic “Journal of the Plague Year,” in the tradition of Daniel Defoe sand Samuel Pepys.

In Defoe’s account of the year 1665, he recorded his observations of the bubonic plague which struck the city of London in what became known as the Great Plague of London, the last epidemic of “plague” in that city until 2020.

“Once ‘free in the streets, what then? Fear and panic could destroy the city as much as plague itself. Many of the doctors fled, along with the rich and powerful; quacks preyed on the poor with their neverfail miracle drugs. Churches and conventicles and synagogues were empty. Neighbours informed against each other. People lied to each other – and to themselves. (It’s just a headache. Just a little bruise. I’ll feel better if I go for a walk.) Worse – there were stories of infected people deliberately concealing their telltale ‘tokens’ and going out into the streets trying to infect others.” 
― Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year

And Samuel Pepys:

whose own journal was later published with these illustrations:

And his entry: “On hearing ill rumour that Londoners may soon be urged into their lodgings by Her Majesty’s men, I looked upon the street to see a gaggle of striplings making fair merry, and no doubt spreading the plague well about. Not a care had these rogues for the health of their elders!”

All this is terrifying, and many more prescient and quotable entries can be found by Googling either Pepys or Defoe, but I’m not sure I suggest going there. Maybe just head on outside on this sunny Saturday morning. But don’t get close to anyone.