History Main / ThePlague

* Notice how often smallpox is mentioned on here? Well, humanity finally won that fight. It was the first disease for which there was a vaccination, and as it is not known to survive in non-human animals, it was actually possible to eradicate this scourge of mankind. By the late 1970s, what had once been one of the deadliest things on earth was no more. In 1980, it became the first disease to be declared officially extinct.

* The Pandyssian rat plague is a key backdrop of the original ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'', affecting every level of Dunwall society. It is extremely virulent and deadly, with several stages progressing from a simple cough and TearsOfBlood , through {{Zombie|Apocalypse}}-like state (people in this stage are referred as "weepers"), to an extremely painful death. [[spoiler:Towards the end of the game, it is revealed that the plague was introduced to Dunwall from Pandyssia on purpose by the future BigBad (back when he was just TheSpymaster), as part of a plot to KillThePoor.]]

** ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'': The "Omega Virus" is a deadly germ-warfare agent that [[BigBad Ernst Stavro Blofeld]] plans to spread. It creates total infertility in plants and animals and can destroy whole strains forever across entire continents in what Bond calls "epidemics of sterility".

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease Ebola]] is a recent example. As a virus, it's innately difficult to treat and it's rare enough that there are no specific drugs for it. A vaccine that works on humans has yet to be developed. Oh, and it makes your [[BodyHorror innards dissolve into a bloody pulp that you then bleed out]]. Thankfully, it had been confined to Africa '''[[ParanoiaFuel ...had]]'''. [[note]]One confirmed person-to-person infection in the United States, and one in Spain, thankfully it never spread farther than that.[[/note]] An important point is that Ebola is ''so'' virulent that it kills its victims before they can get very far -- it's not airborne (you need to come into contact with the bodily fluids of a visibly-infected person in order to catch it), making transmission easily prevented by proper hygiene, which tends to keep it in isolated villages (until the 2014 outbreak -- which is itself ''mostly'' confined to a few desperately poor West African countries with extraordinarily weak public health systems).

** [[UsefulNotes/TheSpanishFlu The 1918 flu pandemic]] was especially virulent precisely because it was pretty much the first war in history where troops were being constantly and efficiently transported all around the world, spreading the disease. Also, it's surmised that the conditions of the war itself made it easier for the virus to spread: Soldiers with only mild symptoms would stay in the trenches at the front line, while those with severe symptoms were transported to field hospitals... thus transmitting the disease further (which is the opposite of what happens normally, ie. people with severe symptoms tend to stay home, slowing the spread of the disease.) Oh, and the Allied and Central Powers [[SkewedPriorities were suppressing reports of it to prevent it from affecting morale]], exacerbating the spread because people didn't know it existed. This led to it being called Spanish flu [[NonindicativeName even though it didn't originate in Spain]] because Spain was neutral, meaning Spanish journalists were allowed to do their job. It has been suggested that it wasn't anything about the supposedly "Spanish" flu itself that caused it to be so deadly but rather superinfections caused by malnourishment, overcrowded hospitals, and shitty hygiene, all a result of the war since getting away from death would take priority over eating and washing and an absurd number of people would be injured or fall ill.

* {{''Literature/Idlewild''}} has Black Ep, the subject of the Ten's medical education [[spoiler:which has already slain more than 99% of Earth's ape populations when the book starts.]]

* UsefulNotes/Covid19, a disease pandemic caused by the coronavirus [=SARS-CoV-2=], was first identified in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, China and spread globally in the first half of 2020. This in turn led to significant increases in mortality around the world and rolling lockdowns globally. Late 2020 saw the advent of vaccines to innoculate the population against the disease.

** ''VideoGame/PlagueInc'' for [=iOS=] started out as a ''Pandemic'' clone but, a number of updates later, has surpassed the original. One of the main changes is that, in ''Pandemic'', the world searches for a vaccine, which can be a moot point if everyone is already infected. In ''Plague Inc'', the world searches for a cure, which is distributed within ''days'' to everyone in the world and is a nearly-instant game over.

* ''VideoGame/{{Kolibri}}'''s story uses the Gaia Hypothesis and presents all life on Earth as part of a single 'body', with each living organism one of its 'cells'. The [[AlienInvasion dark crystal's]] influence is likened to a ''cancer'', corrupting the 'cells' and threatening to see them destroy their own 'body'. [[AllThereInTheManual This mostly comes from the manual]], but is also reflected in levels names like "Metastasis" and "Remission".

** And on that note, the T-Virus from ''Franchise/ResidentEvil''.

* UsefulNotes/Covid19, a disease pandemic caused by the coronavirus [=SARS-CoV-2=], was first identified in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, China and spread globally in the first half of 2020. This in turn led to significant increases in mortality around the world and rolling lockdowns globally. Late 2020 saw the advent of vaccines to innoculate the population against the disease, but even if mass vaccination quells the pandemic, it will still go down as one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

** [[UsefulNotes/TheSpanishFlu The 1918 flu pandemic]] was especially virulent precisely because it was pretty much the first war in history where troops were being constantly and efficiently transported all around the world, spreading the disease. Also, it's surmised that the conditions of the war itself made it easier for the firus to spread: Soldiers with only mild symptoms would stay in the trenches at the front line, while those with severe symptoms were transported to field hospitals... thus transmitting the disease further (which is the opposite of what happens normally, ie. people with severe symptoms tend to stay home, slowing the spread of the disease.) Oh, and the Allied and Central Powers [[SkewedPriorities were suppressing reports of it to prevent it from affecting morale]], exacerbating the spread because people didn't know it existed. This led to it being called Spanish flu [[NonindicativeName even though it didn't originate in Spain]] because Spain was neutral, meaning Spanish journalists were allowed to do their job. It has been suggested that it wasn't anything about the supposedly "Spanish" flu itself that caused it to be so deadly but rather superinfections caused by malnourishment, overcrowded hospitals, and shitty hygiene, all a result of the war since getting away from death would take priority over eating and washing and an absurd number of people would be injured or fall ill.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* UsefulNotes/Covid19, a disease pandemic caused by the coronavirus [=SARS-CoV-2=], was first identified in the city of Wuhan, Hunan province, China and spread globally in the first half of 2020. This in turn led to significant increases in mortality around the world and rolling lockdowns globally. Late 2020 saw the advent of vaccines to innoculate the population against the disease, but even if mass vaccination quells the pandemic, it will still go down as one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

* UsefulNotes/Covid19, a disease pandemic caused by the coronavirus [=SARS-CoV-2=], was first identified in the city of Wuhan, Hunan province, China, spread globally in the first half of 2020. This in turn led to significant increases in mortality around the world and rolling lockdowns globally. Late 2020 saw the advent of vaccines to innoculate the population against the disease, but even if mass vaccination quells the pandemic, it will still go down as one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

* UsefulNotes/Covid19, a disease caused by the coronavirus [=SARS-CoV-2=] that originated from China when infected animals were sold in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan and was transmitted to humans when eaten, before spreading to the neighboring countries, then the other continents. As of January 9th 2021, there have been over 89 million cases and more than 1.9 million deaths attributed to this disease ([[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ the countries with the highest number of infectees being the USA, India, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Germany]]). Late 2020 saw the advent of vaccines to innoculate the population against the disease, but even if mass vaccination quells the pandemic without further complications, it will still go down as one of the deadliest epidemics in history.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident involving a freshly-introduced raid boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer. He came equipped with the Corrupted Blood debuff, which drained HP over time and could spread to other players... as well as their pets and minions. Not only that, but thanks to [[SarcasmMode quality foresight]], infected pets remained so even after the raid was over. The trouble began when some players used pets to collect the ailment and then unleashed them in cities. As it turned out, [=NPCs=] were vulnerable to Corrupted Blood, too. This basically broke the game for about a week as entire cities were depopulated and low-level players died in droves. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar the spread of Corrupted Blood was to real-life diseases, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident involving a freshly-introduced raid boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer. He came equipped with the Corrupted Blood debuff, which drained HP over time and could spread to other players... as well as their pets and minions. Not only that, but thanks to [[SarcasmMode quality foresight]], infected pets remained so even after the raid was over. The trouble began when some players used pets to collect the debuff and then unleashed them in cities. As it turned out, [=NPCs=] were vulnerable to Corrupted Blood, too. This basically broke the game for about a week as entire cities were depopulated and low-level players died in droves. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar the spread of Corrupted Blood was to real-life diseases, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident involving a freshly-introduced raid boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer. He came equipped with the Corrupted Blood debuff, which drained HP over time and could spread to other players... as well as their pets and minions. Not only that, but thanks to [[SarcasmMode quality foresight]], infected pets remained so even after the raid was over. The trouble began when some players used pets to collect the debuff and then unleashed them in cities. As it turned out, [=NPCs=] were vulnerable to Corrupted Blood, too. This basically [[GameBreakingBug broke the game for about a week]] as entire cities were depopulated and low-level players died in droves. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar the spread of Corrupted Blood was to real-life diseases, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident involving a freshly-introduced raid boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer. He came equipped with the Corrupted Blood debuff, which drained HP over time and could spread to other players... as well as their pets and minions. Not only that, but thanks to [[SarcasmMode quality foresight]], infected pets remained so even after the raid was over. The trouble began when some players used pets to collect the debuff and then unleashed them in cities. As it turned out, [=NPCs=] were vulnerable to Corrupted Blood, too. This basically broke the game for about a week as entire cities were depopulated and low-level players died in droves. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar the spread of Corrupted Blood was to real-life diseases, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident involving a freshly-introduced raid boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer. He came equipped with the Corrupted Blood debuff, which drained HP over time and could spread to other players... as well as their pets and minions. Not only that, but infected pets remained so even after the raid was over. The trouble began when some players used pets to collect the debuff and then unleashed them in cities. As it turned out, [=NPCs=] were vulnerable to Corrupted Blood, too. This basically broke the game for about a week as entire cities were depopulated and low-level players died in droves. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar the spread of Corrupted Blood was to real-life diseases, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident involving a freshly-introduced raid boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer. He came equipped with the Corrupted Blood debuff, which drained HP over time and could spread to other players... as well as their pets and minions, with which it stayed even after the raid was over. Some players used pets to collect the debuff and then unleashed them in cities. As it turned out, [=NPCs=] were vulnerable to Corrupted Blood, too. This basically broke the game for about a week as entire cities were depopulated and low-level players died in droves. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar the spread of Corrupted Blood was to real-life diseases, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident involving a freshly-introduced raid boss named Hakkar the Soulflayer. He came equipped with the Corrupted Blood debuff, which drained HP over time and could spread to other players... as well as their pets and minions, with which they stayed even after the raid was over. Some players used pets to collect the debuff and then unleashed them in cities. As it turned out, [=NPCs=] were vulnerable to Corrupted Blood, too. This basically broke the game for about a week as entire cities were depopulated and low-level players died in droves. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar the spread of Corrupted Blood was to real-life diseases, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

** The "Corrupted Blood Plague" was an incident where players used pets to collect a debuff capable of spreading to nearby players and [=NPC=]s and then unleashed them in cities. Entire cities were depopulated. Interestingly, this incident attracted the attention of both epidemiologists and anti-terrorism units, the former because of how similar to real-life diseases the Corrupted Blood Plague spread, and the latter because quite a few infectees tried to deliberately spread the virus.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease Ebola]] is a recent example. As a virus, it's innately difficult to treat and it's rare enough that there are no specific drugs for it. A vaccine that works on humans has yet to be developed. Oh, and it makes your [[BodyHorror innards dissolve into a bloody pulp that you then bleed out]]. Thankfully, it had been confined to Africa '''[[ParanoiaFuel ...had]]'''. [[note]]One confirmed person-to-person infection in the United States, and one in Spain. As of this edit, it's too soon to tell if the virus will establish itself in either place.[[/note]] An important point is that Ebola is ''so'' virulent that it kills its victims before they can get very far -- it's not airborne (you need to come into contact with the bodily fluids of a visibly-infected person in order to catch it), making transmission easily prevented by proper hygiene, which tends to keep it in isolated villages (until the 2014 outbreak -- which is itself ''mostly'' confined to a few desperately poor West African countries with extraordinarily weak public health systems).