Today COVID-19 is causing chaos around the globe, but how does it compare to earlier pandemics? This article discusses the two pandemics, and what we can learn from the Plague of Justinian.
COVID-19 vs the Plague of Justinian
In November of 2019, the first case of COVID-19 happened in China. Now it has spread world wide. This was not the first pandemic nor will it be the last.
The Plague of Justinian began in 541 AD in Constantinople. This plague was fast spreading, and it killed so many people that emperor Justinian appointed someone to remove bodies from the streets. These victims were buried in massive graves. The grave style was similar to the one of the infamous Black Plague.
This similarity made it difficult to decipher what graves came from each plague seeing that both plagues were caused by the same DNA.
The Plague of Justinian killed up to 53 percent of a given town's population in the Byzantine Empire by 555 AD. The amount of death was never recovered, and the empire suffered because of it.
The main difference between the Justinian Plague and COVID-19 is what they are: an infection versus a virus. They infect either with DNA or RNA making them biologically different.
RNA is harder to preserve, so viral pandemics are harder to find throughout history. However, bacteria is transmitted through DNA which is much stronger than RNA. This makes it easy to find when plagues happen, such as the Plague of Justinian.
Wazer, Caroline. “The Plagues That Might Have Brought Down the Roman Empire.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Mar. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/plagues-roman-empire/473862/.
Creator: Picasa