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
You didn't ask me, but I find the anosmia more convincing than the age structure of severity - I think the latter is just about novelty (ie, it's more about us humans than about the pathogen). All-cause mortality has a similar trend (https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/370/bmj.m3259.full.pdf …)pic.twitter.com/EH6iZqKLrA
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I'd always want to ask you. :-D I was struck by the "perverted" smell and taste in the historical descriptions. Also the sequelae incidentally. Brain fog, fatigue, post-exertional malaise...pic.twitter.com/11ARL1PQ15
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