Final answer:
Government actions during the plague included shifting from costly reactive measures to remote surveillance, implementing quarantine and travel restrictions, and the scapegoating of minorities, demonstrating the significant impact of the plague on government behavior and policy.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question pertains to how government actions were influenced by the plague. From the provided text, one can discern that the plague had a significant effect on government policies and the behavior of society. An example supporting the idea that governmental actions were affected is the shift in Geneva's policy from reactive measures, addressing each outbreak as a new external threat with costly measures, to adopting a more proactive approach involving remote surveillance due to their previous strategies failing and faced with the high cost of hazard pay to plague workers.
Another example that can be drawn from the text is the imposition of quarantine and travel restrictions by some Italian cities during the plague era, which reflects how the governments reacted to the pandemic by taking measures akin to modern public health policies.
Furthermore, the escalation in attacks on social minorities, such as Jews in Catalonia, highlighted by the documentary evidence, demonstrates how societal and governmental responses to crises can result in the scapegoating of certain groups, a response fueled by the Black Death.