Do people know that the 1890 pandemic was likely caused by another coronavirus, OC43 (that was then novel?) Nowadays, no longer novel, it is one of the causes of the common cold. We're obviously not living in the OC43 pandemic since, and we won't live in a COVID pandemic forever.
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Replying to @zeynep
I think evidence for 1889-1890 pandemic being caused by OC43 is pretty dubious. There is good seroarchaeology evidence (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2557748/ …) that there was a flu pandemic (probably H3N8) in 1889-1890. In addition, ... (1/3)
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Replying to @jbloom_lab @zeynep
... after OC43 / 1889-90 idea started to gain popular press, I went back & read some historical accounts of 1889-90 pandemic (eg, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1279164530 … & https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3337889379 …). Drs were already quite familiar with influenza then, and they all thought 1889-90 was flu. (2/3)
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Replying to @jbloom_lab @zeynep
As far as I can tell, argument for 1889-90 being OC43 comes from one study that briefly does a molecular clock analysis that put divergence of OC43 and BCoV in late 1800s, and then popular media ran with it without much examination. (3/3)
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Replying to @jbloom_lab
Fascinating, thank you. What do you make of the anosmia?
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Replying to @zeynep @jbloom_lab
Or the age structure of severity? Or that another hCoV might be a candidate? (I should tweet more often—someone in the mentions may have found a lung specimen to test.)
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Replying to @zeynep @jbloom_lab
zeynep tufekci Retweeted Kyle Werewolf
Just tying it here, too! (I had found the anosmia & loss of taste pretty striking as evidence of non-influenza since, as far as I know, that is not something we see in human influenza but now we know is an hCoV thing. But please someone find lung tissue).https://twitter.com/renegadenarwhal/status/1442532000678637572 …
zeynep tufekci added,
Kyle Werewolf @renegadenarwhalReplying to @DFisman @zeynep @VoiceOfFrankyThe H2 finding is also based on *really* flimsy evidence. It's a single serology study from the 1950s comparing influenza recognition between people born before and after 1890. It was done under the assumption that it must have been flu. All we know is h2 was circulating2 replies 2 retweets 5 likes
I could swear I saw an old set of lungs in the attic. But you can never find them when you want them
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