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Entry 240 of 240Pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 CE/Global/Global
Today The whole worldSpan COVID-19 pandemic · 2020 onward

A novel coronavirus circled the planet in a matter of weeks, killing millions and triggering the largest peacetime shutdown of ordinary life in human history, as billions stayed home and governments spent unprecedented sums to keep economies alive. It was the ancient structural shock of Justinian's plague and the Black Death — compressed by modern travel into months instead of years. Demography once again overruled the best-laid plans, and here the recorded walk reaches you, where the next entry is still being written.

◆ Worth knowingGlobal lockdowns quieted the planet so profoundly that seismologists measured a worldwide drop in human-caused vibration through the ground — for a few strange months, the Earth itself was measurably more still.
◆ The mechanismPandemic

A pathogen spreads through a population and reshapes its demography, economy, and beliefs at once.

Also: Demographic shock & recovery · Debt / credit cycle · Institutional sclerosis

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