With massive cuts to Healthcare it is only a matter of time before the US is fully medieval again.
This happens every so often, no big deal. We’ve gotten much better at treating it since that one time it killed everybody.
Broad spectrum antibiotics like doxycycline do wonders for infections when they aren’t everywhere all the time evolving. Thankfully the plague is rare enough it should never become an issue again.
Doesn’t like over half of Europeans (and their descendants) have partial immunity because of what happened eight hundred years ago?
The plague didn’t disappear. But yes, many people did get some form of natural immunity, since no other plague outbreak in Europe had that many casualties ever again.
There are three separate biovars of blubonic plague. Each of them are associated with a historical major pandemic with high numbers of casualties: Antiqua, Medievalis, and Orientalist.
The pathogen also infects more than 200 species of animals including sheep and domestic cats.
Although fleas are the most famous vector it can also be transmitted by ticks, lice, and direct pneumonic transmission (droplet transmission of >2m). It’s theorized that the majority of plague victims in 14th century contracted the disease from pneumonic transmission.
Plague has mutated and wiped out huge amounts of the population 3 times already in history. It will likely do it again.
And that is what is frightening. A new super plague absolutely could develop that would fuck us up something fierce.
Statistically speaking:
“A new super plague WILL develop that WILL fuck us up something fierce.”
The when it will happen is where the fun is at.