Current Events > Evidence Excupates Rats - Virus caused Black Death

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/could_the_black_death_actually/

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Idk why you're posting something from like 7-8 years ago randomly lol, but I'm pretty sure one of the (leading?) theories is that it wasn't just a bubonic plague but also a pneumonic plague, which is why it spread so quickly because then there was person-to-person transfer via aerosols (like how covid is!).
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We owe rats an apology

Bio1590 posted...

Idk why you're posting something from like 7-8 years ago randomly lol, but I'm pretty sure one of the (leading?) theories is that it wasn't just a bubonic plague but also a pneumonic plague, which is why it spread so quickly because then there was person-to-person transfer via aerosols (like how covid is!).

Idk why you are posting this rebuttal which misses major points of the argument for an ebola like virus.

The quarantine of 40 days is consistent with the long incubation period of hemorrhagic viruses
The spread rate of miles per day is consistent with a long incubation period and inconsistent with the short incubation period of bubonic plague.

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CobraGT posted...

Idk why you are posting this rebuttal which misses major points of the argument for an ebola like virus.

The quarantine of 40 days is consistent with the long incubation period of hemorrhagic viruses
The spread rate of miles per day is consistent with a long incubation period and inconsistent with the short incubation period of bubonic plague.

Except it's likely the 40 days closely matching is a complete coincidence, especially with that number's importance in Christianity. Basing things around 40 days wasn't uncommon in those days, and actually I'm pretty sure one of the first quarantine requirements was in fact only 30 days.
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Lent is important and Lent is 40 days. Show me where else Christian cultures have made stuff 40 days because Lent is. 12 days of Christmas not 40.

But it occurs to me that human fleas could hop on an infected rat, bite and hop back. If human fleas can carry and transmit the bacteria, this would counter argument that there were not enough dead rats. (Checked. Human flea not effective at transmitting plague).

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CobraGT posted...

Lent is important and Lent is 40 days. Show me where else Christian cultures have made stuff 40 days because Lent is. 12 days of Christmas not 40.

But it occurs to me that human fleas could hop on an infected rat, bite and hop back. If human fleas can carry and transmit the bacteria, this would counter argument that there were not enough dead rats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_(number)#Christianity

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CobraGT posted...

Lent is important and Lent is 40 days. Show me where else Christian cultures have made stuff 40 days because Lent is. 12 days of Christmas not 40.

The Churching of Women is typically conducted 40 days after childbirth lmao. The Purification of Mary/Presentation of Jesus at the Temple is straight up observed 40 days after Christmas.

Hell they still have la cuarentena in Latin American culture after a woman gives birth.
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Bio1590 posted...

The Churching of Women is typically conducted 40 days after childbirth lmao. The Purification of Mary/Presentation of Jesus at the Temple is straight up observed 40 days after Christmas.

Hell they still have la cuarentena in Latin American culture after a woman gives birth.

Above does not explain why 40 days quarantine was effective and 2 weeks was not effective. If it was bubonic plague the 2 week quarantine would have sufficed.

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https://www.pnas.org/content/117/44/27703

just a quick look up will show that there is copious amounts of genetic evidence from remains pointing to yersinia pestis being the cause of the majority of the "black plague" waves.

there's also the fact that ebola or something like marburg virus dont really spread that easily. you generally need direct contact of infected fluid (blood/sputum) with an open wound or the mucosal layer, its why healthcare workers and family members get it but the virus doesn't explode out of control. airborn spread isn't really a thing

oh, there's also this.

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/dont-blame-rats-spreading-black-death

that suggests that while rats acted as an alternative host for the plague, possibly bringing it into an area, the real issue was when people started getting it since human flea and lice would have been able to spread it from human to human.

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This article on history site talks about a simulation. The spread was too fast

https://www.history.com/news/rats-didnt-spread-the-black-death-it-was-humans

Although I feel obliged to point out that rats eat their weak so you are not going to see dead rats.

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"Virus" literally cannot cause black death the bubonic plague is a bacterial infection.

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Black death is the name for the pandemic. If it was caused by Bubonic Plague, then the two are the same. Otherwise, the two are different.

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CobraGT posted...

Black death is the name for the pandemic. If it was caused by Bubonic Plague, then the two are the same. Otherwise, the two are different.

The black death specifically is the spread of bubonic plague in the middle ages in Europe. Bubonic plague had been around for centuries before and it's still around today.

Unless there's some mind-blowing evidence that the bubonic plague did not spread during that time there's nothing a virus would have done to impact this.

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The, uh, author was a high schooler when this was published.

Her references are news articles, not scientific papers.

What the fuck.

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I... Can't wrap my head around this. How utterly lacking are your critical thinking skills to even bother sharing this? It's shockingly nave and gullible.

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I read the Scientific papers saying the same thing. I think her exposition covers it.

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Bio1590 posted...

Except it's likely the 40 days closely matching is a complete coincidence, especially with that number's importance in Christianity. Basing things around 40 days wasn't uncommon in those days, and actually I'm pretty sure one of the first quarantine requirements was in fact only 30 days.

Quarantine is a Roman empire practice in which ships that came to port had to stay docked for 40 days. The word itself essentially is derivative of the latin word for 40. A 40 day isolation period was essentially the standard for like a thousand years by the time the black death happened.

Don't read too much into the number.

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it came from a lab

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Yeah dude, you just got all those scientific papers but you thought an 8 year old blog post by a high schooler explained it better. Totally.

The fact of the matter is skeptics have existed for over 4 decades and none have actually found as conclusive evidence to support their position as y. pestis--Such as actual genetic material of y. pestis. That you would even insult our intelligence by posting a high schoolers blog tells me you don't have the mental faculties required to even compose a valid, evidence-based argument to the contrary. Just close the topic and shut the fuck up.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Quarantine is a Roman empire practice in which ships that came to port had to stay docked for 40 days. The word itself essentially is derivative of the latin word for 40. A 40 day isolation period was essentially the standard for like a thousand years by the time the black death happened.

Don't read too much into the number.

They also had 30 days, there's even a term for it as well - trentino.

Dubruvka (or whatever it was called then) - had a 30-day one during the plague.
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I'm still trying to figure out why the TC decided to devote his sig to a minor puzzle from a twenty year old game.

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We'll probably never know 100% for sure. We don't even know exactly for sure what strain of influenza if any caused the 1890 epidemic, much less an epidemic from hundreds of years ago.

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