“Eswatini Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini, who tested positive for Covid-19 four weeks ago, has died at age 52 after being hospitalized in neighboring South Africa, the tiny absolute monarchy’s government said late on Sunday.”
Immediately come the comments: “See! Covid-19 is real!” While that is a fact and not in doubt, here are some further realities. On December 2, Dlamini was transported to a hospital in South Africa “aimed at fast-tracking his recovery.” Since few outside of Africa have ever heard of the Kingdom of Eswatini much less of its Prime Minister, no mention is made of his prior health. Neither is there any mention of what the cause of death was, only that he had tested positive for Covid-19 and was asymptomatic then and feeling well while isolating at home.
Here are some further realities. Plague of Athens. Plague of Cyprian. Plague of Justinian. Black death. Cocoliztli epidemic. Great plague of London. Great plague of Marseille. Russian plague. Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic. American polio epidemic. Spanish flu. Asian flu. Swine flu. West African Ebola epidemic. Zika virus epidemic.
The Antonine Plague, suspected to have been smallpox or measles, claimed an estimated 5 million lives. About 1,350 years later Spanish forces, led by Hernán Cortés, delivered the gift of smallpox as they conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. About a decade later, Spanish conquerors spread the plague to the Incas. An estimated 90 percent of the native population was killed off. Aztec and Inca civilizations were swiftly wiped off the map.
The death toll from these local and regional epidemics, as well as the pandemics, were in the tens of millions and more. The future was changed forever. Just ask the Aztecs and the Incans. The economic impacts were just as severe, even without whole civilizations disappearing off the face of the Earth.
But, obviously, this was because of the number of dead.
It might be well to note that of the minimum 25 million that died in Europe during the Black Plague, only one member of a royal family—King Edward III of England’s daughter Joan who was in France at the time of her infection—succumbed to the illness. Why only one Royal? Because little has changed in 700 years.
In 2020, the wealthy work remotely and flee to resorts or second homes, while the urban poor are packed into small apartments and are compelled to keep showing up to work.
Following the 1348 Black Death in Italy, the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio wrote a collection of 100 novellas titled, The Decameron. Here is a commentary on Boccaccio’s writings. “Boccaccio describes the rich secluding themselves at home, where they enjoy quality wines and provisions, music and other entertainment. The very wealthiest deserted their neighborhoods altogether, retreating to comfortable estates in the countryside, “as though the plague was meant to harry only those remaining within their city walls.” Meanwhile, the middle class or poor, forced to stay at home, “caught the plague by the thousands right there in their own neighborhood, day after day” and swiftly passed away.”
CNBC on April 30, 2020: “Coronavirus: Wealthy New Yorkers flee Manhattan for suburbs and beyond.”
Now that it appears that the Covid-19 vaccine will soon be available in quality—and God forbid there are no problems with it—we need to start thinking about a post-Covid economic future. If you think that 2020 was difficult, the 2021 Covid “fun” has not yet started.
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