Our current condition was predicted in the pages of a dystopian novel long ago. It took a pandemic for us to truly think of a break with the status quo.
This is one of the reasons why dystopian fiction soothes the anxiety that we all feel or felt at the beginning of the pandemic. There's many dystopian novels that talk about plagues which can either calm or build up our anxiety.
The pandemic forces us to confront the truth: the ‘normal’ world was abnormal — something dystopias have been telling us all along.
In the article, "A Golden Age For Dystopian Fiction" by Jill Lepore, she says that a dystopia can be "a world in which people tried to build a republic of perfection only to find that they had created a republic of misery." I don't think that there's anything that relates more to what's happening right now. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased inequalities demonstrating how this "organized country" is nothing but imperfect.
When we look outside our windows now, the city resembles a massive toy set. With its citizens gone, the eeriness intensifies.
It's ironic how the description of this setting is like the ones included in dystopian novels, but instead describes our current situation. It's as if we're getting to experience things that seem like would only happen in dystopian novels.