Yeah, plagues and famines are really bad at driving solidarity. They tend to do the opposite. I also had high hopes in the beginning too. But I feared that it would be like the Plague of Milan in 1630.

That particular plague is in Il Promisi Sposi ( The Betrothed), the Italian national epic. Really, it's a bit picardesque. But the first hand descriptions of that plague are just so damn similar to what the COVID was like. I remember reading it years before the pandemic and thinking that I was glad we weren't so mideaval anymore. Now it read it again ( it's only a few chapters in the book) and I feel more like one veteran talking to another about their war.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45334

Chapter 31 is where the plague part starts, you needn't really read the rest, but it's a good summer book all the same