Status Updates From Pesten

How can one read this book now and not think of COVID? Like I feel our recent experience with it may be distracting from the original intent and context of the book, but it feels so eerie with how much it got right (though I am early in the book).

Welp, the first few pages are already giving me flashbacks to COVID. The ignoring of the major red signs that a major pandemic was about to be a big deal, the fact that a boring town was not going to be affected.