Acceleration of plague outbreaks in the second pandemic Journal Articles

abstract

• SignificanceEpidemics of plague devastated Europe’s population throughout the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Genetic studies of modest numbers of skeletal remains indicate that the causative agent of all these epidemics was the bacteriumYersinia pestis, but such analyses cannot identify overall patterns of transmission dynamics. Analysis of thousands of archival records from London, United Kingdom, reveals that plague epidemics spread much faster in the 17th century than in the 14th century.

authors

• Earn, David
• Ma, Junling
• Poinar, Hendrik
• Dushoff, Jonathan
• Bolker, Benjamin

status

• published 

publication date

• November 3, 2020

has subject area

• Animals (MeSH)
• History, 15th Century (MeSH)
• History, 16th Century (MeSH)
• History, 17th Century (MeSH)
• History, Medieval (MeSH)
• Humans (MeSH)
• London (MeSH)
• Pandemics (MeSH)
• Plague (MeSH)
• Population Density (MeSH)
• Rats (MeSH)

published in

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America  Journal

keywords

• Animals
• COVID-19
• History, 15th Century
• History, 16th Century
• History, 17th Century
• History, Medieval
• Humans
• London
• Pandemics
• Plague
• Population Density
• Rats
• epidemic growth rate
• plague
• reproduction number

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1073/pnas.2004904117

start page

• 27703

end page

• 27711

volume

• 117

issue

• 44