Diary of a plague year

IT HAS BEEN a year since the pandemic started to affect Western societies. Here is how one columnist coped as the months unfolded.: In the beginning, all was confusion. In the early stages a “last days of Saigon” feel pervaded the city centre. The trains and offices became steadily less crowded; more and more shops closed for lack of staff. Parents turned into hunter-gatherers, desperately foraging in the supermarket aisles for the last supplies of pasta. Successful scavengers’ trolleys overflowed with rolls of toilet paper. People were braced for dystopia.