Acceleration of plague outbreaks in the second pandemic.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
; 117(44): 27703-27711, 2020 11 03.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-880729
ABSTRACT
Historical records reveal the temporal patterns of a sequence of plague epidemics in London, United Kingdom, from the 14th to 17th centuries. Analysis of these records shows that later epidemics spread significantly faster ("accelerated"). Between the Black Death of 1348 and the later epidemics that culminated with the Great Plague of 1665, we estimate that the epidemic growth rate increased fourfold. Currently available data do not provide enough information to infer the mode of plague transmission in any given epidemic; nevertheless, order-of-magnitude estimates of epidemic parameters suggest that the observed slow growth rates in the 14th century are inconsistent with direct (pneumonic) transmission. We discuss the potential roles of demographic and ecological factors, such as climate change or human or rat population density, in driving the observed acceleration.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Plague
/
Pandemics
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Animals
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
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