19th August, 2020 Back again

 Here we go again.

After 102 days of no Corona virus rearing its ugly head in Aotearoa New Zealand, we were all going about our business, relative free but cautious.

The borders were closed, no one was going overseas,  testing was ongoing and we began to feel pretty safe. 

Then suddenly, shockingly, it was in our midst again, starting with one unfortunate Auckland family, none of whom had been overseas or in contact with anyone who had. 

All previous cases had been of this nature so this was a grim puzzle - to say the least.  Where had it come from?

We still don't know for sure but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has surely assured herself a heroic place in world history,  once more ventured where lesser politicians fear to tread and locked Auckland  down.

Not just putting the city back to Level 3 and declaring isolation for the vulnerable but closing all roads in and out of the city: sealed and patrolled. 

This is not unprecedented. 

In the Derbyshire Dales, a tailor named Alexander Hadfield in the Anglo-Saxon village of Eyam,  took delivery of a bundle of clothing from London. 

Within a few days, people began dying and despite self-isolation of families, the death toll rose to 260.  It was then that Community leaders decided to quarantine the whole village.   No one in. No one out.

That was May 1666.

The deaths didn't stop immediately but the Great Plague was not spread by the many itinerant workers and salepeople whose livelihood depended on moving from village to village with goods.

The disease was as puzzling then as Corona is today. 

Elizabeth Hancock buried her 6 children and husband but did not herself catch the illness. 

The official grave digger Marshall Howe also survived despite burying many of Eyam's families.   

Only 83 person of the original 360 souls living in Eyam at the time, survived the Black Death.

At the bounary of the village and many others towns and hamlets, Plague Stones were sited. They had hollows gouged out which were filled with vinegar; the only form of santisation they knew.

  Farmers in outlying areas could come to place produce near the stone and retrieve the money from the vinega pool.   

Eventually of course, the Plague ran its course but it killed an estimated 25 million people.

On the last day of August 2020, Eyam will celebrate its annual  Plague Day by giving thanks - but they will be tempered by the very real and very frightening situation that somewhere out there, is another evil called Covid-19.