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Not stated in the article, but it's pneumonic plague, according to this story from azcentral and this story from CNN: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local

Not stated in the article, but it's pneumonic plague, according to this story from azcentral and this story from CNN: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2025/07/11/plague-death-arizona/84604256007/ https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/20... https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/12/health/plague-death-arizona https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/12/health/plague-death-arizona

Gys 1y ago
> Plague is a bacterial infection known for killing tens of millions in 14th century Europe. Today, it’s easily treated with antibiotics. > The bubonic plague is the most common form of the bacterial infection, which spreads naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats.
southernplaces7 1y ago
Nasty thing that. Bubonic plague became famous for killing nearly half the western world in the 14th century in just a few years, but for all its voracious destructiveness, the pneumonic variant left it in the dust in specific situations. I've read that in cities and towns where plague took on its pneumonic form instead of its bubonic variant, 80%+ of the local population would die in just days. In some cities struck by this, populations didn't recover until the 18th century.
- southernplaces7 1y ago
  I think it's innately impossible for us now in the comparatively near-sterile, social safety-laden developed world of today to imagine such grotesque death happening so suddenly on such a vast scale. The COVID pandemic, for all the fear and emergency measures it sparked mostly killed sporadically. In any average social group, family or community, one would hear of only a very small minority of people having actually died. It was, comparatively, a sort of kid-gloves pandemic in terms of pure clinical impact. Compare that with hearing stories of a vast and utterly mysterious dying sweeping towards all that you know, only to suddenly hear one day of inhabitants in the outermost parts of your city falling like flies in the most disgusting of ways, and then being forced to watch the same thing you'd feared from rumor unfold before your very eyes to those you love, taking each of them in turn so terribly that you can barely bring yourself to even approach (let alone try help) these same people that you'e cherished since birth. This abyss of tragedy overwhelms you and all your senses before finally, just days later, you wake up with yet another exhausting morning to the discovery of nearly every single person you know being dead, and all the social tapestry that wove you together so richly across so many years now completely erased from your personal world. All this monstrous upheaval, in just a single week.
  - askonomm 1y ago
    You should write a book, if you haven't yet. I'd buy it. Love the way you convey emotion with words.
    - southernplaces7 1y ago
      Now that was a wonderful compliment. Thank you.
    - Grosvenor 1y ago
      Try Michael Crichtons "The hot zone". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone There's entire chapters of this: "The author describes the progression of the disease, from the initial headache and backache, to the final stage in which Monet's internal organs fail and he hemorrhages extensively in a waiting room in a Nairobi hospital. " Edit: Richard Preston, not Michael Chrichton. Not sure what I was thinking.
      - jameshart 1y ago
        Richard Preston, not Crichton. Maybe you’re thinking of The Andromeda Strain?
      - literalAardvark 1y ago
        The Hot Zone was an awesome read. Highly recommended.
    - amenhotep 1y ago
      Recommendation: The Doomsday Book. Connie Willis. Heartbreaking.
  - harryquach 1y ago
    This reinforces my belief that today is the best time in human history to live. Yes there is still pain and suffering but overall more humans live lives our ancestors could not begin to imagine.
fuckyah 1y ago
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AStonesThrow 1y ago
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Gys 1y ago

> Plague is a bacterial infection known for killing tens of millions in 14th century Europe. Today, it’s easily treated with antibiotics. > The bubonic plague is the most common form of the bacterial infection, which spreads naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats.

southernplaces7 1y ago

Nasty thing that. Bubonic plague became famous for killing nearly half the western world in the 14th century in just a few years, but for all its voracious destructiveness, the pneumonic variant left it in the dust in specific situations. I've read that in cities and towns where plague took on its pneumonic form instead of its bubonic variant, 80%+ of the local population would die in just days. In some cities struck by this, populations didn't recover until the 18th century.

southernplaces7 1y ago
I think it's innately impossible for us now in the comparatively near-sterile, social safety-laden developed world of today to imagine such grotesque death happening so suddenly on such a vast scale. The COVID pandemic, for all the fear and emergency measures it sparked mostly killed sporadically. In any average social group, family or community, one would hear of only a very small minority of people having actually died. It was, comparatively, a sort of kid-gloves pandemic in terms of pure clinical impact. Compare that with hearing stories of a vast and utterly mysterious dying sweeping towards all that you know, only to suddenly hear one day of inhabitants in the outermost parts of your city falling like flies in the most disgusting of ways, and then being forced to watch the same thing you'd feared from rumor unfold before your very eyes to those you love, taking each of them in turn so terribly that you can barely bring yourself to even approach (let alone try help) these same people that you'e cherished since birth. This abyss of tragedy overwhelms you and all your senses before finally, just days later, you wake up with yet another exhausting morning to the discovery of nearly every single person you know being dead, and all the social tapestry that wove you together so richly across so many years now completely erased from your personal world. All this monstrous upheaval, in just a single week.
- askonomm 1y ago
  You should write a book, if you haven't yet. I'd buy it. Love the way you convey emotion with words.
  - southernplaces7 1y ago
    Now that was a wonderful compliment. Thank you.
  - Grosvenor 1y ago
    Try Michael Crichtons "The hot zone". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone There's entire chapters of this: "The author describes the progression of the disease, from the initial headache and backache, to the final stage in which Monet's internal organs fail and he hemorrhages extensively in a waiting room in a Nairobi hospital. " Edit: Richard Preston, not Michael Chrichton. Not sure what I was thinking.
    - jameshart 1y ago
      Richard Preston, not Crichton. Maybe you’re thinking of The Andromeda Strain?
    - literalAardvark 1y ago
      The Hot Zone was an awesome read. Highly recommended.
  - amenhotep 1y ago
    Recommendation: The Doomsday Book. Connie Willis. Heartbreaking.
- harryquach 1y ago
  This reinforces my belief that today is the best time in human history to live. Yes there is still pain and suffering but overall more humans live lives our ancestors could not begin to imagine.

fuckyah 1y ago

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AStonesThrow 1y ago

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