Somewhat inspired by
Soriman's thread, I have taken an oath to myself to post something, somewhere on the 'Downs daily. Yesterday it was Crazy Captions. Tomorrow it is... who knows?
Lacking any threads to reply to, I find the real world to be largely full of only one great story--but this is not such a bad inspiration, because there are pestilences--indeed, plagues--in Middle-earth, and I have a tiny bit more appreciation for the Great Plague of the Third Age's seventeenth century, which depeopled great swathes of the West. Perhaps if the Dúnedain had the epidemiologists we do, things might have gone differently.
The glances at Covid-19 are something of a tongue-in-cheek comparison, since that can be a somewhat incendiary topic (though, in the spirit of upping my post-frequency, some flames might be productive...), but it does make me wonder, in the absence of there being any definitive evidence, if this great plague was the work of Sauron or merely something he took advantage of. It's far enough into the Third Age that he was certainly active, but Sauron doesn't have to be the source of all evils.
If engineered by Sauron, does this imply that the Maiar can manipulate micro-organisms? Or did Sauron just encourage the Orks to open a really nasty wet market in Nurnen until all the Easterlings started to drop like flies?