Life in a Pandemic: Some Reflections from The Plague (1947) and the COVID-19 Pandemic

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue I, January 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

Life in a Pandemic: Some Reflections from The Plague (1947) and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Melchor L. Cuizon, Nympha C. Cuizon
Department of Social Sciences, Central Luzon State University, Philippines

Abstract: Human existence is a continual struggle against various kinds of calamities including infectious diseases like the COVID-19 virus that threatens the vulnerability of human life. It has affected humanity throughout the globe who are either hungry due to financial crisis or hospitalized or even killed because of the virus infections. This enduring threat continues to persist as long as the holding sway of the coronavirus remains unresolved. It is no accident that the pandemic of the century mirrors The Plague (1947) of Albert Camus in which both catastrophic events challenged the social order and the vulnerability of human life. Although the health crisis exists in a different period in the history of mankind, nevertheless, the existential crisis it has created has no different. This paper aims to (1) highlight some of the similar events in both pandemics and (2) argue that the pandemic can be an avenue for religious introspection.

Keywords: COVID-19, The Plague, philosophy, Albert Camus, pandemic, faith

Introduction

Human existence is a continual struggle against various kinds of calamities including infectious diseases like the COVID-19 virus that threatens the vulnerability of human life. The uncertainty of one’s life in the face of a pandemic causes so much anxiety and continual fear as Heidegger (1977) says of “pursuing and pushing nothing other than the brink and the danger of the possibility of destining”. Coronavirus infections are very much alarming hence, it continues to be deadly despite the many protocols and preventive measures imposed by authorities to contain the spread of the virus. As argued by Haleem et al., (2020), it has affected humanity who are either hungry because of financial crisis or hospitalized or even killed because of the virus infections. Cummins (2021), commented that the pandemic of the century has dragged humanity into the most serious global health crisis since World War II. Schwab and Malleret (2020) on the other hand, describe it as the greatest fallout which radically transforms every aspect of human life. In the words of Belghazi et al., (2020), who quoted Agamben (2020), these abrupt changes of life become a state of normal condition from which humans become accustomed to living in a state of permanent crisis not realizing that life has been reduced to a purely biological condition and has lost not only its political dimension but also any human dimension.
This current pandemic can be mirrored in The Plague (1947) of Albert Camus from which some events of the novel are very much akin to the recent health crisis across the globe. For instance, in The Plague, the hesitations and doubts of people in Oran who first witnessed the signs and symptoms of an emerging epidemic depict the same disposition shown by the Wuhan authorities when the COVID-19 started to flare – up. The rumors about the virus spread across the globe and created so much fear and anxiety in the public. In response, health protocols were implemented to control and regulate a much more devastating human–to–human transmission of the virus.

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