Well, something similar happened in the mid-1300s and we know its name from the history books: The Black Death. Also called the bubonic plague it began in Asia and arrived in Europe seven years later. But up until now, we didn’t know from where the Black Death originated.

Modern science, however, has unravelled the mystery of the pandemic that lasted from 1346 to 1353 CE (AD) in the first wave. An article appeared last week in the journal Nature, entitled “The Source of the Black Death in Fourteenth-century Central Eurasia.”

The Black Death was caused by a bacterium, Yersinia Pestis (Y. Pestis). Searching for the bacterium, not its evolved variants, took paleogeneticists to northern Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia where unearthed plague victims were found to have traces of the original Y. Pestis DNA. It is likely the disease emerged even earlier, by as much as a century before it marched across Medieval Europe.

Without antibiotics or any understanding of how the disease spread, The Black Death wiped out between 30 and 50% of Europe’s population. It got its name from the spots that appeared on those who were infected. The name bubonic plague refers to buboes which were painfully swollen lymph nodes that bulged. The Black Death infections included other symptoms such as delirium, high fever, and vomiting.

The key to uncovering the origin relies on evidence from three women who were buried near Lake Issyk Kul on the edge of the Tian Shan mountains. They died in 1338 and 1339 of what was referenced on their grave markers as a pestilence. Nearby were many more grave markers covering the decade before The Black Death arrived in Europe.

Y. Pestis was a bacterium that resided in fleas which then past it on to animals and humans through bites. Rats were seen as the likely source of Europe’s outbreak. But humans were facilitators of the spread along trade routes from Central Asia to Europe. What we do know is that the original strain of Y. Pestis mutated into four variants with one of those arriving in Europe seven years after the Kyrgyzstan outbreak.

The parallels to today cannot be missed. The Black Death has never gone away in almost 600 years since its first appearance. It has evolved and although it is treatable by antibiotics still persists with outbreaks making the news from time to time. The four variants still represent 40% of the current Y. Pestis bacteria and can still be found near the Tian Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and the Xinjian Uygur Autonomous Region of Northwestern China.

This latter fact should be noted by those studying the emergence and persistence of COVID-19. The pandemic virus that has currently travelled around the world has undergone a Greek alphabet of mutations with each new variant more transmissible than the previous ones.

Fortunately for us, unlike in the Medieval World, we have mapped the virus variant genome, and created vaccines and medications in record time to try and minimize its damage.

We have a new set of investigative tools for historians today. These are called phylogeography and metagenomics. Both are changing how we explain the great trends of history that formerly were subject to conjecture, or explanations focused on warfare and migration. Now add biological evidence and paleoclimatology to the mix. The study of ancient and medieval history has never been more interesting.

Very few in high-tech and biopharma would suggest that there could be a cause and effect link. That’s because these industries, as have so many other business sectors, have fixed upon global supply chains for their operating model. To think that in pursuing lower labour costs by going overseas, that businesses could become facilitators for a global pandemic. What a jarring conclusion to reach.

So is it true?

Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, Intel, Google, Pfizer, GSK, Roche, and Novo Nordisk, to mention a few of the big North American and European high-tech and big-pharma companies, all have invested in China where they do both research and manufacturing. Last year these were some of the many companies pressured by the United States to leave the country because of the trade and tariff war started by Donald Trump. With the war cooling down in recent months, the reshaping of those supply chains has been minimal, hardly putting a dent in the trading of goods and services.

For the most part here in 2020, China’s technology supply chain remains highly integrated with global manufacturers. Even in the face of a tariff war with the United States, the world’s largest trading nation, China, continues to be fueled by globally integrated supply chains. And where trade goes, so go humans and the diseases they carry.

Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak was referred to as a transport and manufacturing hub as significant as Chicago in a Bloomberg News, January 23, 2020 article, which described the role that city played within China. Wuhan was the centre of a series of complex supply chains providing just-in-time manufacturing for high tech and big pharma. Wuhan’s leading industries included optoelectronics, chip fabrication, flash memory technology for smartphones and computers, parts for the automotive industry, and research and manufacturing of pharmaceutical products all tied to 230 of the Fortune Global-500-listed  companies.

Along with the flow of manufactured goods, there was an equal amount of human traffic. From business development to engineering staff, this free flow of people to and from China and Wuhan, in particular, did for the COVID-19 virus, what medieval trade between the Orient and Europe did to spread the Black Death.

In an article published in eWeek on April 2, 2020, author Charles King, describes our one advantage over the global pandemics of the past. Those high-tech and big pharma companies represent organizations that can help us fight back by detecting and analyzing COVID-19 at a pace much faster than was possible in the 14th century, or even early in the 20th century with the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The speed of research and the ability to crowdsource knowledge from a global community focused on both treatment, and a vaccine cure is unprecedented in human history.

King states, “When confronted with extraordinary events, it’s commonplace for people to look to the past for guidance and insights.” Global trade relationships have in the past produced both the good and the bad. In the present day, this continues to be true. Let’s hope we have learned enough to not have a repeat of a COVID-19 event in the future. It is the right time for these businesses to rethink their global supply chain strategies.