Why is threads talking about a plague taking over Europe

[Ffsnotagainwtf]

I often find thread's interesting, but tonight it's making me anxious by many talking about a plague from Russia that will shut down Europe from November
Someone please give me facts and happy news as it's exploded on there

It is two days old, but there's nothing to indicate that the current situation is any different, with Russia taking a "nothing to see here" position and the WHO remaining unconvinced until further evidence is provided.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/russia-says-reports-second-case-linked-siberian-plague-lab-are-false-2026-10-08/

Your comment wasn’t nasty. I don’t agree with the op for using that word.
Corrections are only an insult to those who think they never make mistakes.

Most people read it as Mumsnet threads because of the context (and no capital letter).

The way she delivered it was a bit nasty, very patronising, but basically quite humorous the way it made her look like the stupid one, when trying to make others look that way.
Hopefully it's a lesson learned

The plague as in the black death was bubonic plague not pneumonic.
Whilst both illnesses are caused by the same bacteria the mode of transmission is different along with the lethality.
Bubonic and septic plague is blood born transmission mostly through flea bites (we used to assume that it was animal fleas but modern studies show that human fleas were responsible for over 60% of plague deaths and animal fleas did the rest)
Pneumonic plague is airborne and spread person to person, has a higher death rate even with treatment and has different symptoms.
So technically its not the plague, although bubonic plague can turn into both septic and pneumonic plague in the body they were not the main cause of death and are not referred to as the plague which was almost exclusively bubonic plague

Bubonic plague started out as being transmitted by fleas on black rats. This then created a secondary transmission path of septic plague where human fleas transmitted the bacterial Yetsinia Pestis by biting an infected person and then passing this on to the next person it bites and so on.

There is an interesting theory that one of the reasons for the reduction in cases of the plague was the displacement of black rats by Brown (Norwegian) rats. Black rats readily carried the rat flea containing the plague whilst brown rats less so. Also black rats lived in closer proximity to humans whereas brown rats lived underground. The brown rats being larger outcompeted the black rats, so that most rats today are brown.

This then led to a reduction in the cases of the plague.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_the_Black_Death