In the New York Times today, M.T. Anderson poses a question:
Fascinating! Anderson starts off with a potted summary of the Black Death in Britain, with its subsequent labor shortages and bouts of inflation, followed by the brutal revenge of the land-owning classes. Then he segues into modern life, but not before he offers up the understatement of the millennium:
We have not suffered as brutal a demographic blow during Covid...
Indeed not. I shall present the difference in handy chart format:
This actually overstates things since we're talking about labor. Among working-age people, the COVID death rate is more like 0.02%.
Come on, folks. Maybe we're going to have a few more zoom meetings or something, but that's about it. Comparing COVID to the Black Death is beyond ridiculous no matter what point you think you're making.
World War 1 changed work - and society - forever, at least in Europe. The pandemic, not so much.
You just know that someone in made the same argument in 1355:
Sure, maybe we'll see a few more iron plows and crop rotations, but any comparisons to the Plague of Justinian are ridiculous.
lol
Comparisons to past flu epidemics makes sense, to a point.
But the demographics can be different, and certainly were different when looking at other diseases.
The comparisons are made because we have not had a "real" pandemic in a while, one that affected a large portion of the US and where most people know someone who died because of the disease. If we're being affected worse than most other countries, then this pandemic must be on par with other outbreaks.
And 35% may be an underestimate as well
The latest analyses from pollen and similar data (for abandoment of cultivated zones) say not, the contrary it may be over-estimate. Black death estimates based on worst hit zones in Italy and France, extrapolated to larger areas seem to be significantly exaggerating, and England appears .
Although even a lower estimate of the Black Death is regardless orders of magnitude worse than the worst of Covid estimates.
Nope, almost certainly not an overestimate. An analysis of wills probated in London during the plague year of 1349, has shown a colossal death rate of 60% of the city's propertied classes (which includes artisans with shops and tools to leave behind). Of course London is a city and medieval cities were unhealthier than the countryside. But the number of village abandoned during the era also supports a high death toll in rural areas. Pollen analysis is much less direct a testimony, as changes in agriculture may not reflect population level changes. Before the plague population was at the Malthusean limit, notably because of a general cooling of the climate. Afterward the smaller population saw a surge in the general standard of living, which among things meant that fewer people were eating much better, including a larger percentage of meat in the diets of even the poor-- and of course livestock must also be fed grains, so less land may have been taken out of cultivation that one might guess at first.
But vaccine mandates are just like the Holocaust!
Interesting that pandemic response excessive nature was another Bush failure. No surprise Democrats are starting to point fingers.
KD teed it up for you by comparing the BLACK Death in 14th century Britain to deaths from COVID, but you still chose MAGA style Bush Derangement Syndrome over racism.
Not even El Jefe himself has cared about Low Energy JEB! in five years.
Personally, I was waiting for it to blame the gee-ewes and sure enough he does this downwind. Whatever else anyone says about it, at least it’s consistent.
Only on that angle, everything else is a kaliedoscope of ever changing poltical angles. It's impressive in a way.
Comparing COVID to the Black Death is beyond ridiculous no matter what point you think you're making.
Sure. Good point. But in fairness, the author states we're not "suffering" as brutal a demographic blow as the 14th century societies ravaged by the black death.
And I do think it might be worthwhile to look back at history for clues as to what we might be in store for. Maybe the parallels with past eras are strong enough so that we'll find a few worthwhile clues. And maybe not. But it might be worth a try.
Before the segue to modern times, the serfs had their revenge on the lords, and evermore this class battle was waged. You left out that part.
Deaths are at 0.28% of US population, not 0.2%, which may seem like a tiny discrepancy but it's not insignificant (that is to say that if you're discarding insignificant figures, you would have rounded up, amirite?) You're discounting over 250K deaths. Are you now going to downplay the deaths as little more than a bad flu season?
Anderson's point wasn't to suggest that we'd see anything comparable to what happened during the Black Death. Rather, he was using it to compare to the iniquity/inequity of the economic caste of then and now, and how a pandemic could expose the failings of that economic caste.
Yep.
Also, although the portion of the population killed during the Black Death obviously (massively) dwarfs anything we've experienced the last two years, that society, pre-pandemic, was far more frequently exposed to death than we are. It was utterly routine. We can scarcely comprehend living in a time when making it to 45 was considered a good, long lifespan. Fourteenth century Europeans were reminded of death constantly. It was, to use a cliche, a normal, everyday part of life. Shocklingly high percentages of people died in infancy. Or during childbirth. Or from bad food and bad water or from famines or from the frequent outbreaks of disease like typhus or smallpox or cholera. Or from chronic, highly common diseases like tuberculosis. Cancer was almost always a death sentence. Pneumonia was vastly more dangerous without the antibiotics to treat the opportunitistic bacterial infections that frequently coincided. And so on.
So, the 15% or so spike in deaths Americans have witnessed is a bit closer to what those long ago people experienced, in terms of psychology, than perhaps we'd like to admit.
The psychology is interesting. In part, the pandemic hurt the MAGA idea of American Exceptionalism, therefore it must be denied. Their overwhelming need to play the victim means there must a conspiracy against them. That goes along with their refusal to take responsibility for their actions--it's like trying to reason with a three year old throwing a tantrum.
It’s like trying to reason with a three year old holding an assault rifle and throwing a tantrum.
Your comment highlights something about Kevin’s post that I find a little odd. People live longer today become of advances in sanitation, public health measures, medical care, etc. The point being that pandemics became less horrific as societies made advances and people lived richer, healthier, and longer lives.
The implication that I take from Kevin’s post is that all the fussing and feuding over Covid-19 is overblown and we’d basically be where we are now even if we had done nothing. I think we would a lot closer to the Black Death if we’d done nothing. And infinity better off if we had emulated more advanced societies like Korea and New Zealand.
Generally if you made it to 10, you'd make it to 50 but of course making it to 10 was the trick. The church had to invent infant baptism to comfort the mothers that their packs of dead babies were not in fact burning in hell.
The plague death toll was not "utterly routine". It was seen as catastrophic even at the time. Nothing remotely close to the magnitude of death had happened since the sixth century plague pandemic, and that had been all but forgotten so much time had passed.
The black death also gave rise to capitalism as damaged monarchs used Jewish banks more and more compared to precrisis when they were scorned. The cheap money was used to rebuild.....in its means. As we know now, "cheap money" creates lending crisis, which Jewish banks could then swoop and rip off assets. In the 1400's, monarchs still had quite a bit of power. By 1800's???? Just boom crisis.
Well he got your click so goal achieved.
Yeah, sometimes I have to agree that Kevin just likes to raddled our cages...on the other hand, maybe he really doesn't get, doesn't understand the massive changes in many peoples lives...maybe not his, maybe not even most Americans...but definitely in mine, and I sure in millions others, (see declining labor participation rate).
Vietnam, the Sixties, LOL, but a lot...yet only this damned Covid thingy has completely transformed my living...(sob...but chin up)...have you ever tried to conduct a court hearing with two opposing counsels 8 ft away on 18in screens and the Judge refusing to leave his chambers and so was on a different, across the huge room, screen with is head down so all I could see was balding scalp, and as a solo all my professional associations and meeting are gone...Yes, I know, zoom, zoom, Zoom.
Doing my own tying now...it has all been...transformative.
I haven't read the cited article since I am a maven for history and think that I have probably read the source material anyway:
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Mortality-Intimate-History-Devastating/dp/0060006935/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DJ2H3HD4I8JT&keywords=the+great+mortality&qid=1645093369&s=books&sprefix=the+great++morta%2Cstripbooks%2C360&sr=1-1
These events in history have meaning...in people's lives...general illness, the fear of illness, the reality of illness....if not in yourself then in others close to you. And death of course.
Read the book....it's only $15 bucks, then get back to us.
Best Wishes, Traveller
NYT Writer: "I'm gonna compare Covid with the Black Death. Readers will love it!"
Kevin: "Beyond stupid. Here's why. Plus: Cats."
NYT Writer: "Rats."
Wow, normally we get much better historical analysis from the authors of YA and children's book authors.
"Comparing COVID to the Black Death is beyond ridiculous no matter what point you think you're making."
Any literal comparison is obviously ridiculous, but you have set up a straw man against which to argue. Dramatic difference in death rates? Absolutely. But let's compare apples to apples. If we're going to estimate U.S. mortality, use excess deaths rather than the official numbers and then you're in the vicinity of 0.35% vs. something between 15-50%. That numerical difference is still huge, but it doesn't preclude an informed comparison of what could happen. It's like saying that we can't learn any lessons from the Depression of the 1930's when dealing with a recession today because the magnitude of the difference in the unemployment rates is so extreme.
We live in a much more complex world today with change occurring over much shorter time intervals. Black Death did impact working conditions, albeit relatively slowly relative to current times. But we're not even through with COVID so trying to argue that we shouldn't be concerned with the long-term impacts or that we can't learn from the past and use that information to try and get a better outcome this time around appears to me to be extremely shortsighted.
What I would have liked in the article is some thought about the implications for labor markets. I have two issues. (1) We typically divide the labor market into blue collar and white collar. In the future it may be more appropriate to divide the labor market into in-person work vs. remote work. There's overlap with the prior split but also major differences. (2) Those two markets may move in very different directions. If you're in-person, whether that's an airline pilot, teacher, assembly worker, grocery store bagger, your job is more demanding than it was two years ago, not just because of the risk of disease but also because there are a lot of people out there that are simply ruder. You're going to need to be compensated for those additional costs or your going to quit and look for employment elsewhere. We see that now most dramatically with the participation rate of those over 55 dropping dramatically. In contrast, if you're remote, you have more personal freedom , aren't tied to a 9-5 schedule, and without your boss looking over your shoulder or having to commute may be happier with your position. You will, however, potentially have fewer social interactions, and there's potentially a cost associated with that lack.
How do labor markets evolve given these trends and the increased application of technology - I won't use the term AI - that will eliminate many jobs in the next few years, long-distance truckers and many accountants come right to mind? Best answer is that I don't think any of us has a great answer to that question. But to say don't look back to the Black Death or the Depression or whatever to inform your best answer is basically sticking your head the sand.
Re: In contrast, if you're remote, you have more personal freedom , aren't tied to a 9-5 schedule
I've been working at home for the last two years. Because of the nature of my job (in finance) I am very definitely a schedule-bound worker with only a little slack in when I start and finish. I must be online by nine am, and I'm generally working until EOD tie-out between 4:30 and 5:30. I suspect most people who were sent home from office jobs are in similar circumstances and aren't just working any old hours they please.
Statistics don't (yet) capture the most important effect of COVID, which is the discovery that collective action is no longer possible (of any kind, towards any purpose). We ought to be galvanized by that discovery, but instead, as always in the past, we deny and deflect. Meanwhile, bad things will happen and we will have no idea why, increasing stress, accelerating decompensation.
Maybe we don't value life and think about death the same as people did in medieval times?
Conversation overheard at a medieval water cooler:
Neighbor 1: Did you hear the news about Fenton of Warwick? He lost his wife and three kids to the plague.
Neighbor 2: A lucky man he is. Fewer mouths to feed, and he still has six kids left to work the fields.
Neighbor 1: Amen to that. My kids hate it when we run out of soup, but it could be worse. We lived on goat vomit when I was a boy.
Neighbor 2: Kids these days. They can't handle a good beating anymore. Always complaining life is nasty, brutish, and short. They have no idea.
OK, so maybe nothing's changed.
Conversation overheard at a water cooler today:
Neighbor 1: Almost a million dead in under two years.
Neighbor 2: Hey, we're Number 1! What else is new?
Neighbor 1: Johnny's school wants him to wear a mask and the boss says I should get a life-saving vaccine.
Neighbor 2: The horror! We need to overthrow the government right now.
BA.2 may be as severe as delta, spread faster than omicron,
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/17/health/ba-2-covid-severity/index.html
cld-
Yes but WE KNOW that there's a trade off between spread and severity right?
We know that post in fection immunity is superior - right?
We know that Mrna vaccines are totally safe right?
I am being very sarcastic.
We have found out so much about SARS.
We now know it affects our BLOOD and therefore can affect OTHER parts of the body which means over stimulation of the immune system by vaccine or continued infections of different variants is NOT GOOD for us.
We also know that all immunity fades over time
We also know that this whole thing has been politicized to the extreme.
Its what we are finding out as time goes on that is frightening
Measles affected our immune system and badly too. COVID may evolve into something that will impact it as well.
We are not done with this as of yet.
My question was is immunity caused by having been infected with omicron working against BA.2 or is it that much different?
BA.2 IS that different but keep in mind that little is known because of the short time frame between onset of Omicron as THE predominant
variant and BA.2's emergence.
25% of new cases of COVID are BA.2 but this only applies to those samples that are sequenced.
Re-infection with Omicron was a BIG concern. BA.2 will be even a bigger concern