When death came to the village of Eyam, it was probably hidden inside a roll of cloth. Bubonic plague is thought to have been carried to this remote corner of Derbyshire from London back in the 1660s by infected fleas, trapped in a bale of fabric ordered to make costumes for a festival. The sickness spread fast, killing dozens of villagers and leaving many on the verge of fleeing in panic – but then something extraordinary happened.

The rector of Eyam, believing it his duty to spare neighbouring towns from infection, persuaded his parishioners to take the astonishingly self-sacrificing step of sealing themselves off from the world. They would live or they would die, but nobody would leave until the sickness had burned itself out. One mother is said to have buried six of her children, yet by staying must have saved countless other women from the same fate.

It’s impossible to read the story of Eyam without wondering who on earth would be capable of such selflessness now

It’s impossible to read the story of Eyam without wondering who on earth would be capable of such selflessness now. When it came to the crunch, how many of us would secretly have more in common with the local squire, who fled after the first few deaths and left his neighbours to their fate? Compared with 17th-century peasants, modern Britons simply aren’t enormously used to the idea of sacrifice for the supposed collective good.

So it’s lucky for us, then, that Covid-19 is nothing like the Black Death. Where untreated, plague killed about half of its victims. This new virus seems to have a death rate of about 2%, and medicine has thankfully come a long way in 400 years. Having been caught up in the noughties’ swine flu outbreak and suffered nothing worse than a few days sweating under a duvet, I’m certainly not inclined to panic unnecessarily about this one, but then people like me aren’t the point. It’s the elderly and infirm, people with existing lung conditions or suppressed immune systems, who may be most vulnerable, and it’s them we are being asked to protect.

Doing whatever is necessary to stop the virus spreading is, much like vaccinating your kids against measles, not just about protecting your own interests but putting the wellbeing of the herd first. The trouble is that we all know what has happened to vaccination levels across the west, as a minority of parents seemingly decided the herd was someone else’s problem.

Are we really ready for a pandemic? Not so much for the virus itself as the personal sacrifices and inconveniences that might follow a serious outbreak: for lockdowns and school closures, empty streets and cancelled holidays, perhaps even factory shutdowns and shortages in the shops if there is serious disruption to global supply chains. The word “quarantine” sends a particularly medieval shiver down the spine because it means being trapped where the infection is – like the tourists now confined to a Tenerife hotel after an Italian guest tested positive – when instinct tells you to flee. But even self-isolation, or voluntarily shutting yourself away at home, as the government recommends here for those potentially exposed to the virus, will be hard on self-employed people who don’t get sick pay, and those in jobs so precarious they don’t want to risk taking 14 days off.

If NHS beds come under intense pressure, difficult choices may have to be made. Yet it’s hard to imagine the spirit of Eyam prevailing when ministers have already had to invoke draconian emergency powers to prevent a man rescued from coronavirus-stricken Wuhan leaving quarantine in a Merseyside hospital.

China’s solution to this dilemma has been the kind of brutally sweeping measures that perhaps only the most authoritarian of states could muster: sealing off whole cities, banning travel, knocking up new hospitals in days and reportedly even nailing victims’ front doors shut, in some cases, to stop them venturing out. The virus now seems to be peaking in China. Yet what can be made to work in a society where everyone fears the consequences of disobeying authority, and where the concept of collective sacrifice for the communal good is drummed in from childhood, won’t translate easily to European democracies.

So far, Britain has opted more for keeping calm and carrying on, bearing in mind the World Health Organization’s warning that this is about containing the social and economic damage caused by mass outbreaks, as well as saving lives. Japan is closing all its schools but the health secretary, Matt Hancock, was clear, when briefing MPs on Wednesday, that this government would seek to keep schools open wherever it could. The scientific advice is seemingly that the economic and social disruption caused by widespread closures, which stop parents going to work, isn’t worth it at this stage.

The unspoken fear is obviously that there may be more than enough economic disruption as it is, with efforts to contain the virus hampering the free movement of goods and people around the world. The modern equivalent of Eyam’s bolt of cloth is lorry drivers shuttling between factory depots, or middle managers flying to and from meetings, meeting and greeting and sneezing and coughing as they go. Airlines freezing recruitment, restaurants reporting cancellations and factories running low on parts are only the most visible signifiers of what may be to come.

But when the WHO urges countries to step up preparations, it isn’t just talking about hospital beds and economic resilience and endlessly reminding people to wash their hands. This isn’t just a test of clinical resources but a test too, in some ways, of Britons’ willingness to put ourselves out for others. Thankfully, this isn’t another Eyam. But we have a choice about whether to be vicars or squires, all the same.

• Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist