Jvstories What If: The Modern Bubonic Plague/ Black Death
What if the Bubonic Plague/Black Death had return?
Before we get to the scenario, let's get to know the Yersinia pesti bacteria(Bubonic Plague)..
The Bubonic Plague/Black Death is known as the medieval massacre, the deadly infectious disease known simply as plague. It killed up to 50 million people in Europe 1346-53..
A Florentine chronicler wrote that,
"All the citizens did little else except to carry dead bodies to be buried ...At every church they dug deep pits down to the water-table; and thus those who were poor who died during the night were bundled up quickly and thrown into the pit. In the morning when a large number of bodies were found in the pit, they took some earth and shovelled it down on top of them; and later others were placed on top of them and then another layer of earth, just as one makes lasagne with layers of pasta and cheese."
The Chronicler Agnolo di Tura wrote from his Tuscan home town..
"In many places in Siena great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead [...] And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city."
With modern day antibiotics we can keep it in check..
Just think what if Yersinia pesti (Bubonic Plague) became immune to modern day antibiotics.. In the modern day there are areas of the world that still experience outbreaks, mortality rates from plague are estimated to be eight to ten percent. The bacteria Yersinia pesti that caused the world second most lethal epidemic recorded in history and killed 60 percent of the people in medieval London and Florence..In modern day its no longer on the most feared-killers list...But if one day this all changed and it gained immunity to the world antibiotics and began to devastate the world once again..
If it ever happened it will all start in Places with high flea and rodent populations.. Because the flea and rodents was the cause of the spread of the bacteria..
For our bacteria to spread it need a rural area for it to start..
Now let's get the scenario..
The outbreak began to spread in the Southwest of the United States..
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an outbreak is the occurrence of more cases of a disease than would normally be expected in a specific place or group of people over a given period of time.
A large group of people began to develop strange symptoms swollen lymph nodes, which can be as large as chicken eggs, in the groin, armpit, or neck. They may be tender and warm. Others include fever, chills, headache, fatigue, and muscle aches.
The people may experience:
Pain areas: in the abdomen or muscles
Cough: can be with blood
Whole body: fever, chills, fatigue, or malaise
Gastrointestinal: diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting
Also common: bleeding, delirium, headache, phlegm, shortness of breath, or swollen and tender lymph node
So they began to flood the hospitals..An the doctors began to give us antibiotics to fight the bacterial infection,But they underestimate the bacteria..So they began to send the people home..They don't know that the bacteria is becoming immune to the weaker verisons of antibiotics...
The bacteria begin to change in some way that reduces or eliminates the effectiveness of drugs, chemicals, or other agents designed to cure or prevent infections. Then the bacteria begin to l survive and continue to multiply causing more harm. Because, bacteria can do this through several mechanisms.
Stage 2, The hospital began to report more and more cases of the bacterial spread and death across the country..This simple bacterial infection that at one point we could control go from being a simple outbreak to a full blown epidemic
According to the CDC
When there is an excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered an epidemic.
Then doctors and CDC researchers began research this strange mutation of Yersinia pesti and figure out why it has become immune to the weaker verisons of antibiotics..Fear began to come across the country,so they try even stronger antibiotics to try to kill the Yersinia pesti bacteria...Now the CDC must find out how,when and where did this happen,so they began to investigate..They discover it's the (How) The fleas and rodents,(When) The first case and (Where) Southwest of the United States..
What the human race began to do.. We try to destory the anomaly that can bring the end to the human race..So we began to kill all the rodents that has fleas,But once we do this we don't think that once we kill the rodents the fleas need a new host ..So the fleas began to treval to find new host..The fleas start biting and infecting wild animals, our livestock and us because, just like we want to live and survive ...The fleas and the bacteria does to..As were doing this the infection is becoming immune to the stronger antibiotics..
Stage 3.. This epidemic become an pandemic..
According to CDC( A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide.)
Then reports began to flood in from around the world. That the researchers tells the CDC that the black death is back and it's immune to modern antibiotics.
Now the fear and realization has kicked in that the epidemic Yersinia pesti (bubonic plague)has returned but with a vengeance...When the the sciencist here from the medical board that the Yersinia pesti has become immune to modern antibiotics the federal government CDC will step in and start isolate and quarantine the sick. Because once antibiotics fail the human race think we're doomed...Our faith is in these antibiotics.
Penicillins such penicillin and amoxicil Cephalosporins such as cephalexin(Keflex.
Macrolides as erythromycin (E-Mycin), clarithromycin (Biaxin), and azithromycin (Zithromax)
Fluoroquinolones such as ciprofolxacin (Cipro), levofloxacin(Levaquin), and ofloxacin (Floxin)
Sulfonamides such as co-trimoxazole (Bactrim) and trimethoprim(Proloprim)
Tetracyclines such as tetracycline(Sumycin, Panmycin) and doxycycline(Vibramycin)
Aminoglycosides such as gentamicin(Garamycin) and tobramycin (Tobrex
So when all fails, the government in act the quarantine law..
The Federal isolation and quarantine are authorized for these communicable diseases:
Cholera
Diphtheria
Infectious tuberculosis
Plague
Smallpox
Yellow fever
Viral hemorrhagic fevers
Severe acute respiratory syndromes
Flu that can cause a pandemic
Once it's authorized by Executive Order of the President.
The last Large-scale isolation and quarantine was last enforced during the influenza (“Spanish Flu”) pandemic in 1918–1919.
Once this happen we began to isolate the healthy and quarantine the sick... We began to kill off and burn the bodies of the sick when the quarantine fail so the bacteria can't spread but, when we isolate ourselves we're not thinking that were making our selves more
vulnerable..The human race is so smart and intelligent that we're stupid and a danger to ourselves..Our brains know this so our survival instinct begin to come in..But the one thing that makes the human race so great is we have a well to survive than settle for extinction..I don't know how but our brain can understand this..Our brain begin to come up with a plan to fight this anomaly..So the brain and body began to work over time and began to fight the bacteria itself..We have adapt to everything the world have thrown at us...