 Hello and welcome to First-Rate Tutors Knowledge Hub, your channel for everything you need to learn, whether you're a student in school or university, or if you're simply someone who's just curious and you want to be better informed. Now, there have been many people who have said the coronavirus pandemic is a modern great plague. Many have drawn parallels between COVID-19 in 2020 and the great plague which occurred in 1665 to 1666. Is this really the case? Watch the video and discover more. Now, Samuel Peeps in his famous diary entries stated, the plague growing very raging and my apprehension of it great in July 1665. And this has some haunting similarities with COVID-19. Indeed, the spread of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, has led many to draw similarities between this pandemic and the great plague. Now, before we go into this, it's really important to distinguish what the great plague was versus coronavirus. Now, the great plague which broke up between 1665 and 1666 was a bacterial infection which was found in rats. It transferred from rat to human because of fleas which bit into infected rats, then bit humans and passed on the illness. However, COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, is a disease caused by coronavirus, which is a virus that affects our respiratory system. It's likely passed on from animals to human and it's alleged that the virus emerged at the Wuhan live animal market somewhere where someone ate an infected creature allegedly and this of course was in China. Now, it will be really interesting to first see how the COVID-19 pandemic really spread. So, as I've mentioned before, it started in China in mid to late 2019 and it merged from Wuhan's wet market allegedly. Then between January and March 2020, COVID-19 spread across Europe with significant fatalities in places like UK, France, Italy and Spain. However, USA was not spared. Indeed, on January the 21st 2020, USA registered its first confirmed case and COVID-19 subsequently spread. Globally, developing countries in places like Africa, Latin America and Asia have also been affected, some severely like India, whilst other places like Kenya have registered COVID-19 deaths but seem to be containing it relatively successfully. Now, let's think about the Great Plague. So, the Great Plague of 1665 arrived in London on Dutch trading ships from Amsterdam that were carrying bells of cotton. Black rats were on board and some were infected with a bacterial infection. The plague was spread by fleas which fed on their blood and once they bit an infected rat, the infected split spread the disease to humans by then biting human beings. Now this Great Plague began in London and the poor overcrowded parish of St Giles in the field. It started slowly at first but by May 1665 43 people had died. In June 6,137 people died and in July 17,036 people and at its peak in August just a few months later 31,159 people had died. The plague also spread to many parts of England and York was one city badly affected. Incubation took four to six days and when the plague appeared in a household the house was sealed condemning the whole family to death. There was even a watcher to ensure that nobody left for 40 days. These houses had a painted red cross on their door and the words Lord have mercy on us. Also, there was no requirement to report a death to anyone so, searches of the dead were chosen by parishes to go and look for corpses and work out what they died of. Also, plague doctors were employed to treat people who had the plague. By 1666, 68,596 plague deaths were recorded in London meaning between 30 to 50% of London's population died of the plague. Now are there outbreaks similar? So when you think about COVID-19 versus a Great Plague, there are some similarities. Firstly, of course, both are transmitted by animals. Also, both of them, if you think about the areas that they really vastly affected actually had been imported. In other words, if you think about COVID, the areas in the regions which have been worse affected than China such as Europe, USA and so on had this of course imported from China by travellers and of course London and the UK which was heavily affected during the Great Plague had imported this from of course the Netherlands with the ships. Also for both diseases, incubation usually is five days. Of course, we know that it can be give or take five days but actually for both of them very commonly the incubation period lasts for five days. Also, of course, both diseases thrive in cities especially highly populated cities that then can infect and go between lots of people very easily. Also, both share some similar symptoms such as fever and coughing. The bodies of the deceased, in other words the bodies of those who've sadly passed away for both COVID-19 and the Great Plague are highly infectious. These bodies are really, really infectious. And also, of course, an effective way to tackle these diseases is through social isolation. So people being isolated of course in the case of COVID-19 were seeing lots of lockdowns in places like the UK, Spain and Italy and of course in the Great Plague, as I've mentioned before, once a household was infected it had to be locked for 40 days. However, there are some significant differences between the two. Do bear in mind of course that COVID-19 or coronavirus is a viral infection whilst of course the Great Plague is a bacterial infection. A virus and a bacteria are significantly different. Also, there are other symptoms which are highly different in the two illnesses. In COVID-19 the symptoms include fever, a severe cough, fatigue, loss of appetite, loss of smell, body aches. Whilst symptoms in the Great Plague involve having large blisters, buboes, chills, muscle cramps, seizures and intense pain. Also another difference to bear in mind with COVID-19 is fortunately a lot of our countries have better public health systems whilst of course during the Great Plague London and other key cities across England were really unsanitary, overcrowded, lots of open sewers. Also of course COVID-19 is being tackled thankfully by qualified doctors and nurses whilst in the case of the Great Plague it was plague doctors who looked after that and whilst when it comes to coronavirus, public health officials and morgues are dealing with those who've passed away. When it came to the Great Plague, public health officials and morgues didn't necessarily deal with them, it was essentially body watches. So that's all, if you found this video useful do consider giving the video a thumbs up and also consider subscribing to our channel. 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