The plague

Reading about the closing down of Mexico because of the swine flu resonated with Albert Camus' book I recently re-read, called "The Plague". It was a striking description of the psychological disruptions that occurred in society because of an epidemic. Even the obviously ludicrous comments made by the religious establishment, in that book, were mirrored in real life by some clerics in Egypt invoking the wrath of God as a cause for the flu.