Three of the deadliest pandemics in recorded history were caused by a single bacterium, Yersinia pestis, a fatal infection otherwise known as the plague. The first was the Plague of Justinian arrived in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, in 541 CE.
The plague decimated Constantinople and spread like wildfire across Europe, Asia, North Africa and Arabia killing an estimated 30 to 50 million people, perhaps half of the world’s population. It ended probably when there were no people to infect and those infected and survived were immune.Next, the Black Death, which hit Europe in 1347, claimed an astonishing 200 million lives in just four years. With still no understanding how to cure the disease they did discover proximity how it was transmitted so they invented trentino for sailors (30 days of isolation) and then quarantino (40 days) eventually the word quarantine was born. Twenty years later in London, the Black Plague resurfaced roughly every 20 years from 1348 to 1665—40 outbreaks in 300 years. And with each new plague epidemic, 20 percent of the men, women and children living in the British capital were killed. Isolation and quarantine of the sick helped quell the spread and eventually fight off each occurrence.
Here we are today with a virus pandemic rattling the world to point of 3.4 million infected and nearly 250, 000 deaths.
In March with the experts telling President Trump the pandemic could kill 100,000-250,000 U.S. deaths he assigned a new task force to research the disease and come up with another scenario. So he hired a man with no experience in infectious diseases and he and others decide the peak of the deaths would happen in April and far less deaths would occur. In the the month of April more U.S citizens died of coronavirus then all the soldiers in the Vietnam war. These are some of the mishaps by our current administration.
The mystery of how this pandemic will end is still just that, a mystery. So we continue to stay home, wash our hands and be as positive as we can during this time where fear lives in our minds as much as it does in air droplets and on surfaces. The virus outbreak called Covid19 is here and most likely it will be around until a vaccine is created and administered to the general public. Today I heard a song by the Doors called Ship of Fools and the lyrics struck me as apropos. Here they are:
Everyone was hanging out
Hanging up and hanging down
Hanging in and holding fast
Hope our little world will last
In March with the experts telling President Trump the pandemic could kill 100,000-250,000 U.S. deaths he assigned a new task force to research the disease and come up with another scenario. So he hired a man with no experience in infectious diseases and he and others decide the peak of the deaths would happen in April and far less deaths would occur. In the the month of April more U.S citizens died of coronavirus then all the soldiers in the Vietnam war. These are some of the mishaps by our current administration.
The mystery of how this pandemic will end is still just that, a mystery. So we continue to stay home, wash our hands and be as positive as we can during this time where fear lives in our minds as much as it does in air droplets and on surfaces. The virus outbreak called Covid19 is here and most likely it will be around until a vaccine is created and administered to the general public. Today I heard a song by the Doors called Ship of Fools and the lyrics struck me as apropos. Here they are:
Everyone was hanging out
Hanging up and hanging down
Hanging in and holding fast
Hope our little world will last
This image, entitled Ship of Fools, was painted by Oskar Laske in 1923. There is no explanation for this painting.
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