How is the arrival of the plague marked and felt by the families we follow? Were these notions familiar to you at all in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, or at other points in history?

The plague is an insidious, but somewhat familiar, presence for the inhabitants of England during the time of the novel. How is its arrival marked and felt by the families we follow? What signs of infection are visible in the body and in how people behave?

Were these notions familiar to you at all in the wake of the conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, or other periods of large-scale disease you experienced in your lifetime or that occurred at other points in history?

When Hamnet goes to the doctor’s home for help the wife thinking it is the plague tells him to go home and do not leave the house. Once the doctor comes he will not come into the home only giving instructions from outside. During Covid 19 I followed all the instructions. I always wore a mask, stayed 6 feet away from others when grocery shopping. I stayed home which was easy to do since almost everything shut down. I received my vaccines as soon as possible. As a child in the 50’s I remember receiving polio shots yearly at school. I remember seeing people in the news in iron lungs. It was nothing I was really concerned about thinking I guess this would never happen to me! But Covid was definitely frightening.

I definitely felt the reality of "the plague" more than I ever did before after living through Covid so facts as portrayed by the author of "Hamnet" felt very familiar.

When the author suddenly brings the details of the flea/plague beginning, I did get a shiver, thinking how it so silently affected people. The not knowing about how and when this plague started and how quickly and easily it affected so many people. Yes, this gave me validation about diseases, especially COVID, the tragic results, ignoring medical advice and having to think globally about countries with disease.

Both Mary and Agnus lost children, it was not unusual for children to die young in those times, so they were terrified when their children feel Ill Well, compared to Elizabethan times, I would say we are much more fortunate to have the science and the medical fields and treatments we have now, but by no means is a plague that kills indiscriminately any less terrifying. I can only imagine how year after year having to navigate all the other untreatable ( at that time) diseases that could kill your family and children would feel, let alone outbreak after out break of black plaque
Living through a pandemic and experiencing the unknown definitely gave me insight on the terror and helplessness these families would have felt especially when young children were involved.

The discussion about the plague was definitely more chilling in light of the Covid pandemic. It is scary to think about how easily viruses can spread even in our modern world. A few years ago we might have thought that the Black Plague spread only because they didn’t have modern sanitation practices.

The passage about the flea and the passage of the plague was fascinating as well as disturbing, considering how ignorant people were at that time. And even though science with its vaccines, masks, and warnings, can help prevent illness, people still die from spreadable diseases.

Even though we think we know so much more about science and medicine and vaccines, etc., than the people in Hamnet, the Covid pandemic showed how much we still need to learn. People were frightened during both pandemics; people were uncertain how it spread and why; advice changed frequently making people even more nervous. The "doctor" who came to the house masked and did his "dance" reminded me of the masks we wore--one mask, two masks, only a certain kind of mask, mask over mouth and nose, etc.

Both the plague and Covid-19 have many similarities but modern science and medicine helped us to fight Covid-19. The people living in England during the plague were at a very big disadvantage because the lack of reliable medical practices and knowledge. Yet even with modern medicine, we didn’t always follow recommendations and those who could least afford getting Covid were caught in it’s grasp. When the the writer began the description of the spread of the plague, it seemed all to familiar. This similarities and contrasts of plague ridden England to modern day Covid would be a great dissertation topic.

I'm imagining it was similar to many of our experiences with Covid, maybe on a more encapsulated level as there wasn't a media that kept on giving out the wrong information. And maybe more more frightening and less hopeful as they didn't have the modern medicine as we have now. ,

Yes, experiencing a pandemic in today's world, which despite our medical advances and scientific knowledge, still has led to over a million deaths and counting, enhanced my reading about the plague in Hamnet. The detail in the chapter on the flea was fascinating; we heard a lot about contact tracing over the past few years. Amazing how agile and relentless viruses are!

In the 21st century with all our scientific advances and advanced global communications many aspects of the plague described in Hamnet remain very similar. People around the globe were frightened, uncertain how the plague/pandemic spread, and confused by the continual changing medical advice on how to protect yourself and love ones.