Blog by best-selling author Olga Swan

14th March 2020 and it looks like the world’s heading for lockdown. Who’d have thought it? So far, the year 2020’s been written by Stephen King - and you know what that means. A gristly end. Apocalypse now. Of course, there have been many serious issues in the past, including world wars, but how ever bad they were, we understood what was happening back then. Mad men being murderously stupid yet again. As a writer, I understood enough about WWII to write about the build up and its effects in Germany, France and Poland (click image icons on the right).
But COVID-19 is a very different threat. A virus, an invisible death machine targeting the old and the frail. I can just about remember the notorious Asian flu in the ‘50s but in those days few people travelled regularly around the world, so virus clusters tended to stay put in certain areas. Those who got it and recovered, built up valuable immunity in their own communities. But COVID-19 is new, so not only has there been no time to boost our own individual white blood corpuscles, we’ve all been busy jetting around the globe during the unknown incubation period and merrily spreading the early germs via plane, tube and cruise ship air con facilities!
Whatever happens in the future, let’s hope someone other than Stephen King writes the epilogue...