If Covid-19 had swept Britain in 1800, the chances are that no one would have noticed. The clinical signatures of plague, smallpox and cholera, for example, are hard to miss, but you need a laboratory to diagnose coronavirus. Nor is it (relatively speaking) that deadly: its case-fatality rate is scarcely enough to feature on the Richter scale of pestilence and its victims are overwhelmingly the elderly. In 1800, however, life expectancy was 40.
The big difference between people now and two centuries ago is that we feel so much more secure – or we did until Covid shattered the illusion of control. My great-great-grandfather, a seaman, was about to get married in 1800. Each voyage was as dangerous to him as childbirth was to his wife. While they lived, 90 per cent of people died before the age of 60. Now, it is the other way around.
Despite Covid, things really are getting better
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Les éléments du progrès : l azote (1)
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