Numbers aren’t certain (because it was the 14th century and they weren’t as into counting every person as we are today) and are hotly debated, but possibly up to 60% of the European population died, and the Afro-Eurasian population in total might have dropped from 475 to 375-350 million… It took nearly a century for European populations to reach the same levels again.
Now this is just the black death, not other plagues of the same disease. This was between the 1340s and 1350s, after the Mongolian empire had re-established the silk road and international trade between China and the Mediterranean basin (although it never entirely stopped, the Mongols just made it easier and safer).
Obviously, we don’t know what long-term changes this will make, but these events always have a long-term impact of some variety. Think about the changes that the AIDS crisis brought, to public health, to the structure of NYC, to sex and sexuality, to the LBGQT+ activism. Historical change was made because people made choices during the AIDS crisis. Same is true for our moment now.
