/johnny
And we still have cases here in America. I believe one recently in Colorado.
And the fleas inhabit rats and other rodents. Cats keep those populations down. So your suggestion to kill cats, I certainly hope, was with sarcasm. It was the killing of Europe’s cats, suspected of being allied with witches, that brought about the Black Plague by allowing the disease vectors, rodents, to multiply and spread.
And witches.
We do have around seven cases a year in the States, so locking down an entire city strikes me as a little bit of an overreaction, although I'm sure the authorities would love to know how the victim was infected. There isn't going to be an epidemic as long as the tetracyclines hold out.
Unless it's really zombies.
And is quite treatable with cheap antibiotics. The only form of the plague that still carries a high risk of death in this day and age is pneumonic plague, which is thankfully quite rare.
There are three kinds of plague, caused by the same bacteria. Bubonic and Septicemic plague, caused by fleas, and Pneumonic plague, caused by coughing, sneezing, and direct contamination.
They are further distinguished because in Bubonic plague, the bacteria is transmitted from the bite to the lymphatic system. Without treatment, the bubonic plague kills about two thirds of infected humans within four days. The name Bubonic is based on the swelling of lymph nodes.
In Septicemic plague, the bacteria instead goes into the bloodstream, causing blood clotting in capillaries throughout the body, causing tissue damage and organ failure. It is almost always fatal if untreated.
In Pneumonic plague, the infection is in the respiratory system. Its untreated mortality rate is “very high”. In the modern world, it is the most likely to cause an epidemic, and it is almost certain that the Chinese epidemic is Pneumonic in origin.
Even stranger, there are many Americans who are *immune* to Bubonic plague, as well as a host of other diseases, including HIV. They are descendants of people in northern Europe and England, with a cell mutation. If they have one copy of the gene, they get sick but recover, which is found in 1 in 5 Americans; and if they have two copies of the genes, they never catch the disease, which is found in 1 in 100 Americans.