Modern disease outbreaks differ from historical ones for reasons that go beyond vaccines, better treatments and improved hygiene.

Sure, that all helps. But these scientific advances went hand in hand with social transformations that made experts and public health authorities more credible than a local leader or a healer who believed eating the organs of the deceased could save people from the plague.

Trust in science and institutions, sometimes reinforced by figures like a Catholic priest promoting vaccination, allowed technological advances to spark broad societal progress that reached far beyond the educated classes. For years, Western democracies championed the building of trust between citizens and authorities.

Where that trust breaks down, ancient instincts can take over despite the availability of modern medical equipment and treatments.

And there are few words that awaken those instincts like “plague,” especially when it appears alongside the word “Russia” in 2026.

So why is this apparently isolated suspected case resonating with people far from the Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East in Irkutsk?

There is nothing particularly Russian about laboratory-acquired infections, one possible explanation that has been raised in this case. Even if we set aside the contentious debate over the origins of Covid-19 and focus........

© The Moscow Times