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
My take as well. I read the articles arguing in support of OC43 and it's really weak. The evidence for influenza is much stronger.
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Thank you both. My thoughts exactly. And even if the OC43 timing worked, to say it caused the pandemic is a wild guess.
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It's definitely more than a wild guess imo, but yes, as Jesse etc. point out, there is substantive disagreement, as well as suspicion over another HCoV. There will surely be more work. That said, point remains: pandemics can end with depletion of immunologically naive population.
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And I disagree, and explained why, but I've already said my piece. I do not know enough to comment on depletion of naive population. We will assuredly reach some level. Whether we can live with the level is another matter entirely.
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zeynep tufekci Retweeted zeynep tufekci
"Live with" is ill-defined. We've added another HCoV, not good. We have vaccines, good. Especially elderly, immunocompromised, infants now have one more risk, not good. Maybe better mitigations for respiratory/airborne diseases in future? That'd be good.https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1445016310551822341 …
zeynep tufekci added,
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Yes, very broad term. Ah well politics often uses catchy but somewhat meaningless terms. Wish more was done by leaders to model and explain to people ramifications. Agree on all your pts re vax, sanitation will help smooth, mitigations for resp.
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