A family in quarantine in the Oise during confinement (illustration) – ERIC DESSONS / JDD / SIPA
- According to several viral publications on the Internet and social networks, a poem written in 1869 by author Kathleen O’Meara would have strange similarities with the daily life of people confined because of the Covid-19 epidemic.
- This text was actually published in March 2020 by Catherine M. O’Meara, a former American professor, on her blog, “The Daily Round”.
- The poem clearly refers to the Covid-19 epidemic and has been widely shared around the world since its publication.
“And the people stayed at home / They read books and hear music / And rested and exercised. According to several viral social media posts, a poem written in the 19th century by Irish author Kathleen O’Meara describes the daily life of people confined during an epidemic. “And to think that this poem was written in 1869”, wonders the author of one of the publications.
In commentary, we marvel at the beauty of the text, these “incredible” similarities with our own daily life at the time of Covid-19 and their “prophetic character”. In short, epidemics repeat themselves, and humans always end up by doing so.
Except that these stanzas, roughly translated from English, were actually written in 2020 and do refer to the new coronavirus.
FAKE OFF
Already pinned by theAFP or by the American media
Snopes, this poem first appears on the platform
Reddit. It is then presented as having been written on the occasion of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919. Other versions then took charge of expanding the intoxicating, asserting that the text had first been written in 1869, then reprinted at the beginning of the 20th century.
The supposed author of the poem, Kathleen o’meara – also known as Grace Ramsay -, Irish novelist and biographer of the late Victorian era, is not the source of this text, first published in 2020.
Its real creator is called Catherine M. O’Meara and is a former American professor from Wisconsin. She publishes this text on her blog, “The Daily Round”, March 16, 2020 and titled “In times of pandemic”. The latter refers unambiguously to the Covid-19 epidemic, and conveys a message of hope: humanity can make the best of difficult situations and disasters imposed on it.
From supermodel Bella Hadid to Indo-American physician and thinker Deepak Choprah, her poem has been widely relayed around the world, even earning her the title of “Pandemic Poet Laureate”. O, The Oprah Magazine, the newspaper founded by the famous American presenter.