G-Tech Corporation wrote:UniversalCommons wrote:I would imagine the Aegean and the other parts would not have been hit as hard. Islands are much easier to quarantine. A considerable amount of the Nestos League has expanded into places like Lemnos, Thassos, Cyprus, Santorini, pieces of Crete, places like Troa and similar places. The act of not letting boats land on islands allows a more natural control of the Red Plague. Basically, islands can shut themselves down and block out people coming in. Cyrene and Troa are also considerably farther away than the center of the League. One of the reasons that Victor Spear is in the islands, is that they are not as damaged. They will be necessary to rebuild once the plague is done. I imagine some of the islands like Heliopolis would just completely shut down and not let anyone in.
Well, not really. Prior to the modern era, being on an island during the time of plague is quite rough. We get by now because we can communicate without personal contact, tell people they need to quarantine weeks before the need approaches their isolated living places. In antiquity plague arrives along with the need itself, and so still infects islands. And islands don't have places you can run to, wilderness areas where you can live away from people and so survive. Their compact urban centers were charnel houses during the Black Death and other pre-modern epidemics...
It is not perfect, I am not a doctor. At this point, they would have reached Salt, Varna, Abdera, Oak, Sand, and some of the coastal settlements, possibly even the border of the Imperium. Varna, Salt, and some of the cities on the Black Sea would be vigilant about people at the border. Mainly this area.
Yeaahhhhh that might be the issue. The trouble is, even with a fearsomely effective quarantine put up inhumanly quickly for a Neolithic society, the Red Plague still kills the League.
You started mentioning quarantine four months after the Plague began. If the Red Plague has an r-value near that of smallpox, it would have already infected effectively the entirety of the League before then. A rough guesstimate would be 130,000 total infected, with a fifth of the infected dying every eight days. Those are societal collapse figures, and even if let's say this quarantine brought in in month 4 is 75% effective, you're still not pulling the r-value down below replication.
Quarantine is an official reaction.
1) The first thing that happens is that the doctor has to identify the disease.-- Round 1 everyone gets it.
2) Then they have to attempt to cure it. Round 2 everyone gets it.--
So everyone probably gets the disease at least twice everywhere including the Imperium. It is not a recognized disease except for in Ur. Everyone dies including the Imperium.
In the Antonine Plague, 1/3 of the population died and Roman Society did not collapse. In the plague of Athens 25% of the population died.
What determines survival in the first two rounds is the wisdom of the crowd and the doctors.
1) The physician separates the patients in their own section.-- This would follow the protocols which happened during the pigeon plague. So the sick are in the hospitals initially. Most of the people in the hospitals die in the first week. People stay away from the hospitals they are afraid. Every hospital everywhere becomes a charnel house including the Imperium. Concentrated death-- people stay away from hospitals. The Temple of the Body Parts starts out as a morgue. (Death in the place of healing-- The charnel house of the Temple of the Body Parts.). (Partial containment)
2) The physician states not the government according to Egyptian and Mesopotamian go to the open spaces. Up to 50% of survival with Nonpharmaceutical intervention is staying away from other people. You must flee the cities to the places where there are less people and the air is pure. (Fleeing to the countryside and the open spaces). Massive move away from the city. This is actually part of both Egyptian and Vedic Medicine. The sick should not go to the healthy cities.
3) We are terrified and we must keep clean and healthy. People look for anything they can that will keep them alive. Soap, medicine, etc. This means there is a little bit more survival.
4) There is no description of how long the virus survives outside humans.
5) I can also say that we have soap and we also have a previous plague to refer to, so people are aware of the plague on some level.
A large portion of the population might not get it because 1) They run away to the countryside or are terrified of people and stay away. 2) They try and stay healthy with various religious, herbal, and purifying actions. 3) A lot of the initial sickness might be in contained in the hospitals. Contagion is a known concept in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. It is not a modern concept. It is more about angels and devils.
This is the classic problem of the government and the people. Before the quarantine is put into effect, a lot of the people flee to wide open spaces and are afraid to gather. They go to the temple and the temple says move away go to the open spaces, do not gather. This is where 50% of survival occurs in a plague-- social distance and moving away from dangerous spaces. This is the reason why people might survive the initial plague.
This is the actual message from Vedic medicine, do not gather, keep your distance, no public spaces. If you read about Mesopotamian places, it starts with keep the sick separate, do not let the sick into healthy cities.