The state of being quarantined can be disheartening; there always exists the fear that they know something that they're not telling you. It can be as equally traumatizing to those who resisted ex-patriation as to those who are just now, upon returning to their homeland, finding themselves effectively cut off from the sweet comforts of home.
Any attempt to isolate the virus isolates the person. How does one combat this situation? In the literary world a journalist would attempt to escape and an unlettered man would attempt to write a book. Unfortunately, that world exists only in the existentialist mind.
In this world, where such recourse doesn't exist, everyone is affected: those playing host to the virus, and those who think they are; those who are sweating out the virus, and those who are just sweating.
Now, clearly the virus is highly contagious, but with a death rate of only 5.6%, it stands to reason that the hysteria, while not undeserved and certainly to be expected, may be a tad extreme.
This seems to be a premeditated effort - fear makes the people malleable, thus easier to shape in the shaper's image.
Are you retching because of the disease or because of fear of the disease?
Written on Tuesday, 29 April 2003