The historian Procopius details some of the devastation of Constantinople in his book Secret History, written at the time. He suggests that when it was at its most virulent, 10,000 people per day were dying, though modern historians estimate a more conservative but no less baffling 5,000 every day.
Re: bubonic plague -- c/w/ COVID-19? (2016 pub date on this book -- oh shit he had NO IDEA what was coming)
