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Earn DJD, Ma J, Poinar H, Dushoff J, Bolker BM. Acceleration of plague outbreaks in the second pandemic. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2020; 117:27703-27711. [PMID: 33077604 PMCID: PMC7959508 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2004904117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Historical records reveal the temporal patterns of a sequence of plague epidemics in London, United Kingdom, from the 14th to 17th centuries. Analysis of these records shows that later epidemics spread significantly faster ("accelerated"). Between the Black Death of 1348 and the later epidemics that culminated with the Great Plague of 1665, we estimate that the epidemic growth rate increased fourfold. Currently available data do not provide enough information to infer the mode of plague transmission in any given epidemic; nevertheless, order-of-magnitude estimates of epidemic parameters suggest that the observed slow growth rates in the 14th century are inconsistent with direct (pneumonic) transmission. We discuss the potential roles of demographic and ecological factors, such as climate change or human or rat population density, in driving the observed acceleration.
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Affiliation(s)
- David J D Earn
- Department of Mathematics & Statistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada;
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- Michael G. deGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
| | - Junling Ma
- Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8W 3R4, Canada
| | - Hendrik Poinar
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- Michael G. deGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- McMaster Ancient DNA Centre, Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- Department of Biochemistry, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
| | - Jonathan Dushoff
- Department of Mathematics & Statistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- Michael G. deGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
| | - Benjamin M Bolker
- Department of Mathematics & Statistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
- Michael G. deGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada
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Rolls DA, Robins G. Minimum distance estimators of population size from snowball samples using conditional estimation and scaling of exponential random graph models. Comput Stat Data Anal 2017. [DOI: 10.1016/j.csda.2017.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
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