
What caused the Black Death and could it strike again? (2016) - YeGoblynQueenne
https://aeon.co/essays/what-caused-the-black-death-and-could-it-strike-again
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dreamcompiler
The US Rocky Mountain region gets a handful of cases every year. It's easily
treatable with antibiotics if caught early.

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mullen
Idaho just got a case a week or two ago! The kid will be alright because of
antibiotics.

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pmoriarty
According to this article, _" Even with the best treatment, some 14 per cent
of pneumonic plague victims still die."_

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dreamcompiler
Over 80% of plague cases in the United States are of the bubonic form, which
is less often fatal. [0]

The case of the boy in Idaho is bubonic.

[0]
[https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html)

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samatman
Yersinia pestis, and your choice of "no" and "yes, this happens yearly"

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forkLding
I understand the article, but its quite a wide berth to just stop OBOR for
that, the routes also foster more efficient trade and commercial activity
between hubs.

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Latteland
Yeah, it must be able to travel on people or their possessions in airplanes. I
don't think it's fair to just blame China for moving it along, when there are
many many other vectors. If there's some special reason obor is dangerous,
call it out. Otherwise, airplanes exist!

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mmirate
Well, iff the reader accounts for the headline's question implicit qualifier:
"could it strike _us_ again" where we probably aren't in China or Kazakhstan
...

... then Betteridge's Law applies as always.

(But seriously, this qualifier almost always applies when discussing any kind
of non-universal disaster or malaise. Some resource-stripped sh&thole on the
other side of the world could get _overrun by zombies_ and it still needn't
matter to us because it's only a resource-stripped sh&thole.)

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skookumchuck
Zombies are a physical impossibility, so nobody sensible worries about zombie
attacks.

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King-Aaron
> so nobody sensible worries about zombie attacks

As an interesting aside to this comment:
[https://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombie/index.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombie/index.htm)

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Iv
I guess the CDC does this in good faith but for military, zombie scenarios are
a way to prepare for civilian uprisings without explicitly naming it. Easier
to make a "zombie plague preparedness" exercise than a "Trump supporters take
arms when their president is impeached".

Zombies are a local inside enemy that allow training on the domestic
territory. Hard to name a fictional enemy that would not make headlines
otherwise.

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ithkuil
Would a generic "terrorists" label spur too much controversy?

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Iv
Terrorists that would take over a whole civilian area and are able to send
waves of thousands of infantry? Yes, clearly.

