There’s a lot we don’t know about what has happened in Siberia. What we do know: A 28-year-old laboratory worker at an anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk died last week after developing severe pneumonia. Russian authorities have described her illness as pneumonia of unknown origin and said tests found no connection to the dangerous pathogens she worked with. But reports have circulated that she may have accidentally broken a test tube containing plague bacteria, and the hospital where she was treated has been quarantined. Around 200 people who may have had contact with her have reportedly been placed under observation.
So, no, it’s not Covid again. And it might not be a plague outbreak at all. But the possibility of a laboratory accident involving Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague, is sufficiently alarming to have attracted international attention.
