Not really. Despite all our advances in medicine, there's still pretty much nothing we can do about most viral infections, and even diseases we can treat and/or vaccinate still kill millions every year. A new disease, or simply an old one that has been out of circulation such as smallpox or even TB, that most people have no natural resistance to absolutely could cause serious problems. Throw in the fact that population density has never been higher and travel has never been easier, and if anything a pandemic is much more likely now than ever before.Megalodon said:A global pandemic ala 1918 is highly unlikely in the modern age.
Smallpox in particular is of note, since that's almost certainly what both the Plague of Cyprian and the preceding Antonine Plague around a century earlier were. It killed a few hundred million people in the 20th century, and was still killing millions per year in the '60s soon before it was entirely eradicated. There is still no cure, there are no vaccine stockpiles, and there will be very little immunity since vaccination is no longer carried out and has not been for decades and immunity doesn't last for decades in those who have been vaccinated. If it got into the wild again, there would be absolutely nothing to stop it being just as bad as before. There are currently similar concerns about TB, where eradication has essentially failed and resistant strains which again have no cure are currently spreading. Antibiotic resistance is such a big concern precisely because it means our medical advances end up meaning absolutely nothing. Treating someone with resistant TB means making them comfortable and hoping they don't die.
Almost certainly not. The population of Rome was only around a million at that time, and the plague lasted for 20 years or more by which time the population had declined to around 500,000 (not just due to the plague). There's simply no way such a high death rate could have existed for more than a day or two. That's the maximum possible peak of deaths, not a consistent sustained rate.Mr.Mattress said:Woah woah woah, a Plague that literally killed 5,000 people a day
As noted above, it was almost certainly smallpox. Infection requires close contact with an infected person, the virus doesn't survive outside the body for very long. 2000 year old skulls are not an issue.Second of all, do you really want to find something like this? Who knows how long this disease could be alive for on non-living things!