What’s the Difference Between a ‘Plague’ and a ‘Pandemic’?

A plague is like a big mess that happens in one place, while a pandemic is when that same mess spreads all over the world.

Imagine you have a toy box full of your favorite blocks. If only you spill the blocks on the floor, that’s like a plague, it's messy, but just in one room. Now imagine your friends come over and they also spill their blocks, and then your neighbors do too, and soon everyone in the whole neighborhood is tripping over spilled blocks. That’s a pandemic, the mess spreads everywhere.

A plague starts small and stays close to home. It might be just one city or even one family who gets sick from something like germs or a virus. A pandemic, on the other hand, is when that sickness travels far and wide, maybe by airplane, or through people who go from place to place.

The Black Death was a plague, it started in Asia and spread to Europe, but not everyone got it. The flu of 2009 was like a pandemic, it went around the whole world really fast, just like how you might pass your germs to your brother, who passes them to his friend, and so on.