What if, around the time the black plauge hit europe in OTL, instead the Spanish Influenza arrives in europe
WI: instead of the black Plauge, the spanish Influenza
- Thread starter Mister Abbadon
- Start date
To get this out before it gets outta hand: No one expects the Spanish Influenza!
Now, from a quick wiki look, the virus worked by creating an overreaction in the immune system, which is why the robust immune system of young adults killed them, while younger and older people (with their weaker immune systems) were more apt to survive. So perhaps this creates a lost generation, allowing the young and older to survive, but killing off the middle? And as people in the middle ages didn't live to be that old anyway....
Now, from a quick wiki look, the virus worked by creating an overreaction in the immune system, which is why the robust immune system of young adults killed them, while younger and older people (with their weaker immune systems) were more apt to survive. So perhaps this creates a lost generation, allowing the young and older to survive, but killing off the middle? And as people in the middle ages didn't live to be that old anyway....
Living to 60 wasn't out of the question in the middle ages, even for peasants. It's taken as true on this site that modern people can't go back in time because their immune systems can't handle the regular pathogens humans back then dealt with daily. So if human immune systems were stronger then, that means the flu will be more deadly. And it does take a while to incubate, 7-10 days so you could get pretty far. I think you're going to get significant depopulation but I'm not sure how many. H5N1 has 60% kill rates, H1N1 had lower than usual unless you had some other issue like asthma. The exception to that is Ukraine which apparently got a variant that was more deadly.
I'd say optimally, you could kill off 10-15% of the population and Muslims would be just as hard hit since it's not dependent on disease but human vectors and they did a LOT of trade.
When I pulled a similar event in Raptor of Spain earlier this summer I set my target mortality at 2% for Alt-Spain which is rather healthier relative to OTL medieval Europe and killed off Amina's brother as an example of young adults who were killed. 2% which is what modern CDC considers a top level pandemic.
Not considering what has been said by the people above me,
Spanish Influenza would definately be much different than The Black Plague.
Bubonic/pneumonic plague killed by draining iron from blood and oxygen from some other tissues.
Influenza makes the immune system kill itself after it's incubation time is up.
Influenza would be more of a threat to farmers, whose live in the field expose them to crippling fungal diseases. Children would also be affected, leaving the old and the rich.
The would be a generation gap, and due to many other conditions, Europe would still take many years to recover, but not as long as it did with the Black Death. That means less of a need to mechanize, and a prolonged Dark Ages.
Spanish Influenza would definately be much different than The Black Plague.
Bubonic/pneumonic plague killed by draining iron from blood and oxygen from some other tissues.
Influenza makes the immune system kill itself after it's incubation time is up.
Influenza would be more of a threat to farmers, whose live in the field expose them to crippling fungal diseases. Children would also be affected, leaving the old and the rich.
The would be a generation gap, and due to many other conditions, Europe would still take many years to recover, but not as long as it did with the Black Death. That means less of a need to mechanize, and a prolonged Dark Ages.