Why do epidemics come to an end? Three factors are at play. The virus itself loses its potency, treatment improves, and we become less attuned to the ebb and flow of the crisis. The epidemic loses its coherency, both in seeming and in reality. We experience, as Camus wrote in his novel The Plague, “a negative solace” – in that things that had seemed unthinkable just a month ago, exercise more than once a day, or meeting friends, gradually lose the edge of anxiety and fear. We get used to it.