The Similarities and Differences of Covid-19 and Bubonic plague
Both Covid — 19 and Bubonic plague are pandemics that resulted in a significant loss of human life, and yet there are some significant differences between them.
Some people refer to today’s pandemic as the “new plague”, but in reality, it remains insignificant in comparison to the previous “Black Death” disease, which killed one-third of the population of Europe alone. Comparing and contrasting the two pandemics based on their fatality rates, how they spread, and where they first appeared demonstrates how different and similar the two are.
The Bubonic Plague also called the “Black Death Plague” was a devastating disease that ravaged Europe and portions of Asia within the mid-1300s.
Many individuals believed that it had been God’s retribution for their crimes like blasphemy, heresy, and worldliness at the time.
And, according to their rationale, the only way to gain God’s forgiveness was to sacrifice or purify heretical populations, which is why many Jews were slaughtered at the time.
Scientists do not completely understand the true origin of the plague today, although it was thought to have been spread by a bacillus called Yersinia
pestis. It can only be transferred by an infected rat, fleas, or cat bites, but as the virus progressed, it may also spread from human to person via respiratory fluid or the air.
At least six million people have perished as a result of the continuing Covid — 19 pandemic. Unlike the Black Death pandemic, Covid — 19 is caused by the SARS-CoV- 2 virus. It was revealed that this virus originated in Wuhan, China. Cough, loss of taste, fever, and loss of smell are the most frequent Covid-19 symptoms, which might appear weeks after getting the virus.
People become infected with Covid-19 by breathing respiratory droplets hanging in the air and by touching their faces with unwashed hands. Unlike the Black Death Plague, scientists developed vaccinations for Covid 19 months after it first appeared.
The symptoms of the Black Death and Covid-19 are more similar than you may think. Fever, headache, shortness of breath, and a dry cough are among the symptoms.
However, other experts believe that at least 30–45 percent of Covid-19 patients are asymptomatic or have no symptoms at all. Aside from having the same symptoms, the viruses both originated near or in China, and individuals behaved very identically in both pandemics.
Many people perceived proof in Black Death that Jews were deliberately spreading the infection through wells, springs, and rivers, and as a result, they were either slaughtered or tortured across Europe. During the coronavirus epidemic, people are often bigoted toward Asian or Asian-looking people, blaming them for the virus’s spread.
Coronavirus and Black Death are comparable but not identical in terms of destructiveness.
They unleashed huge consequences on the earth, bringing mankind to its knees.
But if these pandemics have taught us anything, it is to avoid the impulse to understand sickness within a moral framework, and I can say that these heinous occurrences made us realize how many things we take for granted in life, not to mention life itself.