Albert Camus

". . . they commissioned journalists to write up forecasts, and, in this respect at least, the journalists proved themselves equal to their prototypes of earlier ages.

Some of these prophetic writings were actually serialized in our newspapers and read with as much avidity as the love stories that had occupied these columns in the piping times of health. Some predictions were based on far-fetched arithmetical calculations, involving the figures of the year, the total of deaths, and the number of months the plague had so far lasted. Others made comparisons with the great pestilences of former times, drew parallels (which the forecasters called 'constants'), and claimed to deduce conclusions bearing on the present calamity. But our most popular prophets were undoubtedly those who in an apocalyptic jargon had announced sequenced of events, any one of which might be construed as applicable to the present state of affairs and was abstruse enough to admit of almost any interpretation. Thus Nostradamus and St. Odilia were consulted daily, and always with happy results. Indeed, the one thing these prophecies had in common was that, ultimately, all were reassuring. Unfortunately, though the plague was not.

The Plague, Albert Camus.