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What you should know about the Russian “plague lab”

You’re probably worrying about the wrong things.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The death of a 28-year-old lab tech halfway around the world is not typically the sort of thing the White House monitors.

But when that tech dies of severe pneumonia…while working at a Siberian plague research lab…foreign governments (and pretty much everyone in my timeline) tend to pay more attention.

The World Health Organization says that there’s little cause for concern, to be clear. Testing has turned up no connection between the woman’s work and her cause of death.

And even if she did contract pneumonic plague, that’s hardly a doomsday scenario. The plague comes in three flavors — bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic — and they all crop up from time to time, particularly in places like Central Asia and Africa. If caught early, pneumonic plague is typically curable with common antibiotics. A man in Arizona caught the disease........

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