Edgar allan poe's wife has tuberculosis. It is said that she bled to death while playing the piano and singing. As an image, Edgar Allan Poe appeared many times in her works, and people speculated that this disease was one of the inspiration sources of the red death.
However, the original description of the disease itself was limited, only that it was highly contagious, and the infected person was covered with erythema and his clothes would ooze blood, which had a very high mortality rate at that time. This bloody setting can arouse people's instinctive fear most. Perhaps whether it is the Black Death or tuberculosis or COVID-19 in reality, the fate it symbolizes is what the author wants to express most.