4 ms·

> " Rats and fleas don't respect human quarantines." rats dont travel as much as you think, even within cities. only when the rats piggy back on human travel,

> " Rats and fleas don't respect human quarantines." rats dont travel as much as you think, even within cities. only when the rats piggy back on human travel, could they have spread the disease. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/magazine/the-rat-paths-of-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/magazine/the-rat-paths-of... "But feral cats won’t stray three blocks beyond where they were born, and few mice will venture more than a hundred feet from their burrows in a lifetime."

hajile 9y ago
If rats don't travel, then how do they spread the plague? If they do travel, then quarantine would not work. If they travel with humans, then we would expect to see massively higher infection and death rates among travellers due to prolonged times with infected rats as they dragged them everywhere (where is this evidence?) The plague spread across Europe at an enormously fast rate (some believe that hemorrhagic fever with a separate bubonic outbreak in Italy).