By coincidence, I happened to be reading John Kelly's The Great Mortality: an intimate history of the Black Death, when news of the coronavirus outbreak first broke in the British press. It is remarkable what an enduring hold this devastating historical event – which killed between a third and half of Europe's population – continues to have on the public imagination.

Nearly seven centuries later, its memories and impact continue to resonate. Still sung today, the nursery rhyme Ring a Ring o'Roses is sometimes attributed – probably wrongly – to the plague of 1347-48. More likely in its derivation is the word quarantine, from the Italian quaranta giorni, referring to the 40 days that ships suspected of infestation were obliged to wait in isolation before being allowed to dock.

There were few, if any, protections from the bubonic plague – if you got it you were almost certain to die from it, miserably and painfully. Never mind the immediate human tragedy, both the long-term societal and economic effects were transformational.

Covid-19 plainly doesn't begin to compare; we have got rather better at understanding and dealing with these things and, in any case, we know that the coronavirus isn't even remotely as deadly, even in countries with poor healthcare systems.