from VoxEU.org — Coronavirus from the perspective of 17th century plague

by Neil Cummins (LSE), Morgan Kelly (University College Dublin), Cormac Ó Gráda (University College Dublin)

A repost from VoxEU.org

Between 1563 and 1665, London experienced four plagues that each killed one fifth of the city’s inhabitants. This column uses 790,000 burial records to track the plagues that recurred across London (epidemics typically endured for six months). Possibly carried and spread by body lice, plague always originated in the poorest parishes; self-segregation by the affluent gradually halved their death rate compared with poorer Londoners. The population rebounded within two years, as new migrants arrived in the city “to fill dead men’s shoes”.

Full article available here: Coronavirus from the perspective of 17th century plague — VoxEU.org: Recent Articles