The first European country hit hard by the virus is Italy. ibid.
Beyond the economic damage the human cost of the pandemic is mounting. ibid.
Lockdown is slowing down the spread of the virus but hopes for an end of the pandemic rest on a vaccine. ibid.
The global vaccine race is hotting up with 24 candidates going through trials. The Oxford vaccine is out in front. ibid.
Pandemic. Lockdown. Self-isolation. The new normal. You could be forgiven for thinking that these words only apply to the Covid-19 crisis … We have been here before. In the middle of the 14th century the Plague swept across the entire world. And everywhere it struck, as many as half the population suffered a terrible death. For more than three centuries we lived in the shadow of the Plague. It transformed our society, our culture, our sense of humanity. Laura Ashe, Plague Fiction, BBC 2020
We can see the similarities: the xenophobic reaction that accompanied the disease’s arrival and the fact that Italy would become Europe’s Ground Zero. ibid.
The global figure may be as high as 200 million. ibid.
Not the first time we had suffered a deadly epidemic: in a frightening parallel 350 years earlier we endured one of the greatest tragedies in British history: the Great Plague. Over 18 months beginning in 1665 this horrific disease killed an estimated 100,000 people in London alone, a quarter of the entire population, and a further 100,000 as it spread around the country. The Great Plague: Outbreak, Channel 5 2020
It was in these back alleys that cases of Plague began to multiply. ibid.
Plague: in the previous 300 years there had been 18 major outbreaks in London. But this one would surpass them all. ibid.
‘There was a bubonic type which is to do with the lymph nodes, a septicaemic type which is when it gets into your blood stream and a pneumonic type which gets into your lungs.’ ibid. Dr Chris Conlon
It killed more than half those who contracted it. ibid.
Plague evolved about 10,000 years ago in Asia. ibid.
June 1665: the rising death toll finally forced King Charles to close the theatres. ibid.
Report on Certain Cases of Plague Occurring in Glasgow in 1900 by the Medical Officer of Health. ibid. public archives
Evidence showing the Great Plague was spread not by rats as traditionally thought but by human fleas and body lice which live in people’s clothes. The Great Plague II: Decimation
By the beginning of July [1665] 470 people a week were dying and thousands more were falling sick. The deaths were overwhelmingly in the poor suburbs to the west of the walled city of London. But the contagion was now spreading east. Terrified by this spiralling epidemic, most better off Londoners now decided to try and escape the City. ibid.
Apart from a handful of heroes, almost everyone in authority seems to have chosen to abandon the poor of London to their fate. ibid.
If a Plague victim was found, the house was locked up with the entire family inside whether they were sick or not. A red cross was then painted on the door along with the prayer, Lord Have Mercy on Us. ibid.
Following death, the infected lice would simply leave the host in search of a new home. ibid.
The failure of shutting up to contain the epidemic was clear as the death rate spiralled ever higher. ibid.
Effectively, they have shut the second-hand clothing trade. ibid.
A burial operation on an almost industrial scale was begun – dozens of cart horses were hired to collect the dead. ibid.
The refugees had taken the Plague with them, and the epidemic would spread across Britain. ibid.
London’s infamous back-alley slums where body-lice and human flea infestations allowed the disease to run rampant. The Great Plague III: Aftermath
It seems being treated for it could have been worse … more harm than good. ibid.
We are the heroes because we have exposed the scamdemic for what it is. Pandemic I 2020: The Shock of the New, evangelist, BBC 2021
As the crisis unfolds, it reveals what unites us and also what keeps us apart. ibid. caption
I still don’t think as a society we really get it still. ibid. doctor
A lot of the stuff we did in the early stages turned out to be wrong, some of the treatments we tried because we didn’t know. ibid.
Rio de Janeiro: Because of my history as an athlete if I were infected by the virus, I wouldn’t need to worry. At the very worst, it would be like a little flu. ibid. Brazilian president
It takes just one flight to carry Coronavirus around the world. Pandemic 2020 II: The Great Divide
‘No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States. The virus will not have a chance against us. We are all in this together.’ ibid. Trump
I knew right off the bat that this was propagandism by the mainstream media … More people were dying in the planned parenthood abortion clinics than were dying of the virus. I have never worn a mask nor will I ever wear a mask. The mask doesn’t work. Neither does the social distancing work. Pandemic 2000 III: Brave New World, Tony Spell, convicted minister
The Black Death was a fourteenth century apocalypse. Robert Bartlett, Inside the Medieval Mind II: Sex, BBC 2008
There is something mighty suspicious about declaring an emergency for something that has yet to show itself to be a grand pandemic. Billy Corgan, re Swine Flu 2009
In 1918 Influenza spread around the world in three dreadful waves ... It was the worst epidemic in the world’s history, more lethal even than the Black Death ... As it spread around the world, the three-day flu got a more exotic name: Spanish Flu. Professor Neil Ferguson, mathematical epidemiologist
In 1348 the Black Death struck the British Isles and spread like wildfire. It’s believed to be the most deadly pandemic in history. Before the Black Death the population of mainland Britain was around six million; two years later, only an estimated three million were left alive. The Black Death: Lucy Worsley Investigates, BBC 2022
Emerging global trade routes in the 14th century exposed Britain to a deadly new disease: it had raged through Asia and Europe wiping out millions before emerging on these shores. ibid.
In Survivors: 95% of the population had been wiped out by a future pandemic – the Death. Survivors captured the pessimism and paranoia of mid-70s Britain. Dominic Sandbrook, The 70s III: Goodbye Great Britain 75-77, BBC 2013
Tonight: Britain’s first death linked to Coronavirus. Are we now on the verge of a mass epidemic? The PM says Britain will cope; medics say we shouldn’t panic. But some are preparing for the worst. Will rises cost him jobs and the economy? And, what do we need to know? Tonight: Coronavirus: What You Need to Know, ITV March 2020
‘People didn’t want to believe that they could be healthy in the morning and dead by nightfall.’ Secret History s6e5: Killer Flu, Channel 4 1998
It was the worst epidemic the world has ever known. It attacked over a billion people, more than half the world’s population. It killed an estimated forty million people. And yet it’s hardly remembered. ibid.
‘All the evidence points to this virus originating in the United States. But of course how can we be sure?’ ibid. Professor John Oxford
An autopsy revealed lungs that were swollen, filled with fluid and strangely blue. ibid.
As it spread through the trenches the virus mutated. ibid.
Folk remedies might have been no more than a comfort but doctors were just as useless. ibid.
People in the very prime of life from 21 to 29 were most vulnerable of all. ibid.
‘The elderly could have experienced the virus already.’ ibid. Professor Oxford
Soldiers were taking the flu with them all around the world. ibid.
The people of medieval Europe called it the Great Prestilence. A terrifying and bewildering sickness from the East which brought delerium and an agonising death. Fear and hysteria gripped the land, and as the death toll mounted, it became apparent that no-one was safe and no-one could offer protection. As the sickness raced across Europe, communities struggled simply to bury their dead. And they sought answers: someone to blame or a means to appease God’s wroth. This was the Black Death, the great biological disaster in the history of mankind. The Plague, History 2024
Festering disease. Raging pestilence. And agonizing death. But what if the source for all this very human suffering has a strangely non-human origin? Ancient Aliens s3e7: Aliens, Plagues and Epidemics
The worst plague in recorded history. Could this deadly pandemic, known as the Spanish Influenza, have been somehow connected to the incident at Fatima? ibid.
Disease has been responsible for more deaths than every war in human history combined. ibid.
Like the plague of Athens, the Justinian Plague was accompanied by multiple reports of strange sightings in the sky. ibid.
Among antiquities, MacGregor Man is not alone. Throughout the world there are scores of ancient carvings and figurines that seem to depict other-wordly creatures in what some claim is astronaut-like clothing. ibid.
If there was a sinister agenda, why not just attack our planet and be done with it? ibid.
Kerala, India, 2001: A cosmic bang, a massive explosion in the atmosphere, and then a downpour of red rain. ibid.