Hacker News

41

Plague Ships (2020)

> In 1377 a system was established in Dubrovnik whereby ships were to wait for 30 days before entering port which was based on medical advice at the time

I was in Korčula last year, an island accessible from Dubrovnik by ferry.

A resident whose family had been there for generations told me that the island had surprising sanitation in the era of the Black Plague; they got through that period mostly unscathed.

by lelandfe1775350685
It was facinating to see airlines continue to fly into ebola zones eventho they barely had passengers.

Even if all seats are full they dont make earth shaking profit that cant be avoided. The economy doesnt require doing it. The risk benefit ratio is off the chart.

People making such decisions should really be behind bars? I cant think of a better way to kill. Just send some plague ships and it will make short work.

by theendisney1775339850
> 12 trading ships from Black Sea ports made desperately incompetent efforts to dock alongside the harbour walls. Then the reason became devastatingly clear; very few of their crews were still alive. The living were emaciated skeletons, covered with black boils that oozed blood and pus.

Can’t imagine what that must have been like to witness in medieval Italy.

by mr_00ff001775348756
Regarding the Spanish (or Kansas) flu, there is some evidence suggesting that the second wave was much deadlier than the first because of an unusual practice connected to World War I:

Soldiers infected with more virulent strains were more likely to be shipped to military hospitals, while those infected with less virulent strains were more likely to remain in the trenches.

The military hospitals were much more active vectors of transmission than the bays of the trenches, so the normal pattern of transmission was inverted, with the more virulent strains spreading faster than the less virulent ones.

Under normal conditions, the very sick would stay home while the less sick would go to work, which would tend to push highly virulent viruses toward becoming less virulent over time.

by ETH_start1775330757
I don't see a publication date, but first archive.org snapshot is April 2021.
by fwipsy1775334462
by 1775335441