How life under the bubonic plague reflected the coronavirus pandemic

Historian looks back at the diary of 17th-century British naval administrator Samuel Pepys

Plague doctor
A plague doctor in protective clothing in an engraving from c. 1656
(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Ute Lotz-Heumann, Professor of Late Medieval and Reformation History at the University of Arizona, compares the response to the plague in the diary of Samuel Pepys with today’s pandemic in an article originally published on The Conversation.

In early April, writer Jen Miller urged New York Times readers to start a coronavirus diary.

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