How can Disease bring about Historical Change?

Source: Introduction to Boccaccio’s Decameron,

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/decameronintro.html

Instructions:

In the 1340s, the Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death, killed one out of every three Europeans. In the Introduction to his novel, The Decameron, the Italian Renaissance writer Boccaccio vividly documents the impact of the arrival of the plague in the city of Florence, a flourishing and wealthy city in Medieval Italy.

According to Boccaccio, what were the effects of the plague on the city and society? In what ways did the disease bring about historical change? Finally, what similarities and differences can you see between the crisis that the plague brought about in Florence and the crisis in the modest world in the light of COVID-19?

Please post your own response (2-3 paragraphs),