What COVID diaries have in common with Samuel Pepys’ 17th-century plague diaries

Folks hold diaries for all kinds of causes – to document occasions, work via tough conditions, or handle stress and trauma. The continued COVID inquiry exhibits diaries even have necessary political and historic significance. The UK’s former chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance’s diaries have been a key supply of proof, exposing the chaos inside authorities on the time.

In my PhD analysis, I’ve been exploring the COVID diaries of bizarre folks, in addition to diaries stored in the course of the Nice Plague of London in 1665-66. Although centuries aside, these diaries are stuffed with perception into how folks react to crises, and have stunning similarities.

From the primary lockdown in March 2020, media retailers, archive centres and researchers inspired folks to document their pandemic experiences. Even BBC kids’s entertainer Mr Tumble urged younger viewers to start out a diary.

This has resulted in a lot of COVID diaries being made obtainable in archive collections across the UK, plus many extra on-line within the type of blogs or social media. I’ve been wanting particularly at 13 COVID diaries donated to the Borthwick Institute for Archives and the East Driving Archives, each in Yorkshire. Most had been initially non-public paperwork, providing a extra spontaneous, trustworthy and intimate portrayal of pandemic experiences than their on-line counterparts.

Diaries written in the course of the Nice Plague will not be so quite a few. Of the few obtainable, essentially the most precious is that of naval administrator Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), whose exceptionally detailed and candid journals type by far essentially the most complete firsthand account of plague-stricken London.

I’ve been studying Pepys’s diaries alongside the trendy COVID diaries, and have been struck by the frequent themes in how folks navigated their pandemic experiences.

Recording statistics

All through the COVID pandemic, statistics of instances and deaths had been all over the place, and had been key to how we judged the impression of the virus. As diarist JF wrote on June 5 2020:

It was time to observe the Corona Virus replace and I used to be shocked to seek out that over 40,000 folks have now died from the illness on this nation and it’s not over but!

Comparatively correct data was additionally broadly circulated in Seventeenth-century London through the “payments of mortality” – weekly lists of deaths in line with trigger and site. Pepys wrote on September 7 1665:

Despatched for the Weekely Invoice and discover 8252 useless in all, and of them, 6978 of the plague – which is a most dreadful Quantity – and exhibits purpose to worry that the plague hath bought that maintain that it’s going to but proceed amongst us.

All the trendy and historic diaries I’ve checked out embrace these statistics – some sparingly, others with meticulous regularity.

The blame recreation

As instances rose, restrictions had been enforced and the results of plague and COVID loomed massive within the lives of our diarists, narratives shifted to confusion and blame. Pepys was largely sympathetic to the federal government’s dealing with of the plague and, in February 1666, criticised those that flouted the principles and endangered others:

Within the heighth of it, how daring folks there have been to go in sport to at least one one other’s burials. And in spite to effectively folks, would breathe within the faces … of effectively folks going by.

COVID diarists reacted to those that didn’t comply with pointers in a really comparable means, as DR wrote in March 2020:

Not everyone seems to be enjoying it very effectively, although, with panic-buying, one final evening on the pub and a mass exodus to the coast. Silly and egocentric in equal measure.

The response and actions of the UK authorities, and particular person members of parliament, additionally afforded a lot consideration. An nameless diarist wrote in Might 2020:

Persons are being allowed out extra however the sickness remains to be on the market & there’s no remedy or vaccine but … There are fewer deaths due to social distancing. In the event that they let everybody get on with the ‘new regular’ certainly extra folks will get sick?

Staying constructive

A extra optimistic theme to emerge within the diaries was the power to seek out positivity amid the chaos. Pepys and trendy diarists had been grateful for the blessings of well being, household and safety. They praised those that went the additional mile to mitigate the impression of the pandemic on these round them, regardless of the danger to their very own well being. An entry from New 12 months’s Eve in 1665 reads:

My complete household hath been effectively all this whereas, and all my mates I do know of, saving my aunt Bell, who’s useless, and a few kids of my cozen Sarah’s, of the plague … but, to our nice pleasure, the city fills apace, and retailers start to open once more. Pray God proceed the plague’s lower!

DW’s diary from April 2020 expressed appreciation for outing in nature, in addition to sympathy for others residing in tougher conditions:

It was pretty strolling via the wooden. The air was crammed with birdsong. It made me realise how fortunate I’m to reside in a village the place I can stroll from my entrance door into fields and woods alongside outlined paths. It have to be terrible to reside ten flooring up in a excessive rise block with two kids, and never be allowed out apart from as soon as per day.

Evaluating COVID with historic occasions reminiscent of plague, the Spanish flu epidemic and the second world warfare was a core aspect of the pandemic narrative, and for good purpose. Historical past connects.

It’s simple to go searching us and see the huge variations between the world we reside in now, and that which Pepys traversed virtually 400 years in the past.

However by exploring the innermost ideas of individuals with a component of shared expertise, we see that basic features of the human situation endure. When confronted with uncertainty and upheaval, our instincts are to document, discover solutions, and reclaim pleasure.