Through March 2020 and into April, as the coronavirus spread, hospitalizations surged, and the death toll climbed, the fear it engendered grew as well. To this point, everything I had submitted to a newspaper or magazine had been written from the perspective of a concerned citizen with no special expertise. As it became evident that the coronavirus would be no fleeting event, expertise came into play. I knew a bit about the Black Death, the mother of all pandemics. If a comparison between the plague and the coronavirus might lend people perspective and allay their concerns in a small way, it seemed worth doing. I wrote an editorial-length juxtaposition of the two diseases. Although I was reluctant to mention an academic qualification – it’s the opposite of persuasive for some readers – it was relevant, so I included it. An effort was made to keep the tone non-partisan. I dispatched the thing to The Richmond Times-Dispatch and soon heard back from one of its opinion page editors. It would run in the Sunday edition. My exchange with the editor was pleasant. I had to provide a head shot. That didn’t thrill me, but The Better Half did as well as she could with the material given her.
“Coronavirus and the Black Death,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 5 April 2020, D1, D3 (https://richmond.com/opinion/columnists/david-routt-column-coronavirus-and-the-black-death/article_c3f6f286-6efb-5ea4-86db-253d825cb5b0.html).