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 @zeynep
Not exactly. The argument also includes symptomology as well. Disease from the Russian 'flu' pandemic was very similar to Covid19. Symptoms anosmia and ageusia were of note.
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Replying to @Science54900201 @zeynep
Where are primary citations to this? British Medical Journal in 1892 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2419593/pdf/brmedj08834-0035.pdf …) listed main 1889-90 symptoms as sudden onset, chills, high fever, & aches--all sound a lot like influenza. Loss of smell just noted in passing as one of many sequelae.
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Replying to @jbloom_lab @Science54900201
I've definitely seen distorted/perverted smell/taste mentioned in multiple histories... (I'll look again for more). This looks like a great project for a historian, though,collect contemporary to accounts. (like this: https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2014/08/15/a-physicians-perspective-on-the-russian-flu/ …)
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My own "hobby" virus is yellow fever—long story but I read a lot of primary sources on it. It's pretty striking to follow the causal inference of the time—they didn't even have a proper theory but were very observant and a lot of hypothesis-testing (though not called that).
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So my guess would be that a deep historical dive would unearth a lot of detailed accounts that probably never got collated together, or looked through modern clinical eyes.
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