After every major pandemic, there is social unrest…
âSo when our Sickness, and our Poverty Had greater wants than we could well supply; Strict Orders did but more enrage our grief, And hinder in accomplishing relief.â
Thatâs how the British poet George Wither explained a spreading rebellion against social-distancing rules. Seeing quarantines and lockdowns as unfair and tyrannical punishments, people were taking to the streets. The year was 1625, the place was London, the disease was plague.
…The peasant revolt in the 1300s, the civil unrest in the 1600s and the civil disobedience in the 1900s. The strict measures required to snuff out pandemics always makes the lives of the poorest unliveable, we haven’t seen the economic whiplash of Covid yet, especially amongst small business owners and those who were already vulnerable.