As the COVID-19 pandemic settled in over the course of the first half of 2020, few works enjoyed as much renewed interest as those of the Algerian-born French existentialist Albert Camus. His classic 1947 novel "The Plague" tells the story of a town beset and isolated by an outbreak of the bubonic plague. The plague drags on and health authorities struggle to contain it. The population experiences a breakdown of civic order, a crumbling trust in institutions and the gradual onset of general paranoia. Sound familiar?