To answer this question I personally believe that Covid is not an example of history repeating itself. In class, we studied how the Black Death plague of 1346 affected the people who were caught in areas that were infected with the plague and how life changed for those people. In an article titled The Plague in Siena Writer Agnolo Di Tura writes about how the plague affected the people living in areas with the plague, and in this document the writer talks about how people gave up on life and waited for their turn to pass on. The plague was bad enough to the point where people wouldn't bury the victim's bodies due to the fear that they might catch the plague, so families had to bury their own members. Di Tura writes “And I, Agnolo di Tura, called the Fat, buried my five children with my own hands. And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city”. Today, March 29th Covid-19 has not gotten to the point where people fear for their lives and refuse to bury those who have passed and we certainly don't leave the dead in our streets to be consumed by animals. If history really was repeating itself we would be making similar poor choices, maybe not leaving our dead to be eaten by animals, but we would be making similar bad choices such as no restrictions on the people and nobody has to wear protection, for example masking up to protect yourself and others. Lastly, if history was repeating its self with Covid-19 I believe that our death rate would have to increase substantially as of today 2.79 million people have died from Covid-19 while National Geographic says that about 25 million people died of the Black Death. In a transcript provided by bl.uk titled Chronicle of the Black Death the transcript depicts what life was like during the plague and how many people died due to the plague when it states “A great mortality … destroyed more than a third of the men, women and children”. If Covid-19 is a repeat of past illnesses, I believe it would have to be just as deadly and an equal threat to all types of people. Due to a lack of a negative response to Covid-19 and the death rate is much lower than the Black Death’s, I conclude that Covid-19 is not an example of history repeating itself.
