I’ve been watching some history shows recently and it’s amazing how many plagues there have been in human history. Sure, most had to do with improper hygiene and having farm animals share living quarters with humans however germs are now becoming anti-biotic resistant.
Some plagues have had mortality rates of over 30% – source https://www.oddee.com/item_90608.aspx. This is an astronomical figure, one where we can’t even comprehend.
Imagine if a plague knocked out 10% of people in the modern age. What would the consequences be? What if 20% of people died? Our society would collapse. Everything we take for granted would disappear. It’s a frightening thought. Our entire economy, our systems are built on banks. Insurance companies would become bankrupt, banks would collapse and who knows how long it would take to recover.
The basic necessities of life, food and water would be more scarce because it would be harder to get them harvested and then into the cities. Panic would occur very quickly and when you include the fact that paper money decreasing in value rapidly would increase panic, the consequences would be extreme. What would happen at hospitals? Would the police force be able to keep up? This peaceful period of time that we live in would be completely gone. Not only that, our wealth would disappear and it would be a vicious cycle that would be very difficult to recover from.
Never take for granted the peaceful times that we now live in. We’re incredibly fortunate.