The Great Mortality by John Kelley *** (of 4)

It started in China in the first half of the 14th century and by 1348, fleas riding rats (and maybe marmots) carried a pandemic across Asia and Europe. Between one-third and one-half of all the people on those two continents died. 

Europeans of the Middle Ages were not famous for their comprehension of science, their record keeping, nor their cleanliness. Yet, death by plague was so ravishing that it was the preeminent event of a century, so clear in its approach and consequences, an accurate timestamp can be placed on a map for the date of its arrival in city after city.

Within days or weeks after making its entrance, the plague bacterium, Yersinius pestis, eradicated nearly half of everyone it encountered. Pause and think about the impact of a mass and instantaneous die-off of that magnitude and you can understand why American defense specialists used the plague as a model for the aftereffects of nuclear war.

Like today's COVID-19 pandemic, anticipation of the plague's arrival induced fear, anxiety, willful denial, and scapegoating. For nearly 1,000 years the Christian heirarchy declared that all of earth's major outcomes were the will of God: illness, droughts, storms, crop pests and the like were divine retribution for iniquity. The cause of the plague was blamed on Jews, who not only killed Christ, but continued to extract Christian blood for the use of secret rituals and the desire for world domination (rumors that circulate to this day.) The solution in nearly every village and town in Italy, Germany, and France was to round up the town's Jews and burn them. 

Have we progressed much if America's most recent president labels this round of global pandemic, the Chinese Virus, and his minions search for someone upon whom to place their fears?