Survivor Manuals
Unfortunately, the coronavirus isn’t as novel as its name implies. Pandemics and plagues run deep in the history of the American West, their implications and consequences recorded in journals, letters, and other artifacts. Documents such as this collage may help us make sense of the COVID-19 crisis. These acute moments—from the late 19th century forward—when infectious diseases arrived, bringing fear and death with them, provide context and understanding to our situation today.
In every case, disease is one thing: what it is, how it is transmitted, how it sickens, and how it kills. The response to disease is another thing, always more complicated. People react in myriad ways. They are afraid, they take precautions, they care for themselves and their loved ones. But sometimes they strike at outsiders, at those they blame for the disease and its spread, mistakenly believing contagion
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