we have plague here In the states- every now and again folks die from it- a couple of hunters a few years ago died of it- not only black plague but pneumonic plague as well
Even though it’s a bacterial you would think remaining European descendants have some built in resistance to it now.
Can’t it be picked up by contact with Armadillo’s?
Yes, NM still has cases. Some have said that rat urine on Pinon Pine nuts was a probable vector.
Pinon Pine nuts were widely collected and eaten by New Mexicans. I admit I have eaten them too. No longer, but it has been a very long time since I was in NM.
In rural parts of New Mexico. Connected to some kind of nuts at least I have read that several years ago.
I read some time ago that black plague was endemic in wild rodent populations in 17 western states. Yersinia pestis has three forms: bubonic, pneumonic and septicemic. Bubonic occurs in relatively healthy people and is survivable. The buboes are blackened blood filled lymph glands which indicates the immune system is working. Septicemic is a total infection of the blood in people with deficient immune systems and kills almost all very quickly. Pneumonic is spread from one person to another by coughing and sneezing. It attacks the lungs and is rapidly fatal to almost all. A significant change in Europe may have been the shift of plague from wild rodents to black rats which often lived in houses with people, thus spreading the infected fleas. Subsequently, the plague seemed to shift to Norway rats which are sewer and cellar rats and less likely to infect people.