In these days, newspapers and television programs (and the web, of course) are giving space to a statement by the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (SIMA) announcing important discoveries on the link between airborne particulate matter and Coronavirus, even describing them as important for the decisions to be taken in the coming weeks.
Comparing the Covid-19 pandemic with two pandemics from literature: “The White Plague” by Frank Herbert and “Station 11” by Emily St. John Mandel
Epidemics is an often recurring theme in world literature, where authors share with us their realistic and unrealistic version of them. I recently read two books with global plagues in them: “The White Plague” by Herbert (1982) and “Station 11” by St. John Mandel (2014). These books came to mind at the outbreak of the new coronavirus epidemics, and I was reminded of the traits of their own epidemics and how puzzled they had left me. I will not compare these three diseases scientifically, as that would be impossible.
These notes are strictly personal but express ideas which are shared by a vast community of researchers, including epidemiologists, clinicians, immunologists and lab scientists. This is meant to be a working document.
