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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I agree, basically. Isn't clear OC43 caused pandemic in 1889 & can't assume
#SARSCoV2 will become common cold. Hopefully, but some endemic viruses (eg flu) remain serious. But pandemic will become less-severe endemic as more immunity. BTW, here's flu mortality in 1918 & after:pic.twitter.com/e4fG9XMllh
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"some endemic viruses (eg flu)" Flu is hardly the example I'd reach for. I'd bring up our thousands of years of cooexistence with smallpox, which never decided to just become mild for our sakes. Though tons of other examples of other horrible endemic diseases exist. Most still.
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Sort of, although smallpox analogy also imperfect because vaccines work *great* against smallpox, which is why it's eradicated. Coronaviruses undergo antigenic evolution more similar to flu (https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1009453 …), which is why they won't be eradicated.
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Replying to @jbloom_lab @enn_nafnlaus and
Zeynep's point wasn't necessarily that SARS-CoV-2 would become mild on its own, but that immunity would help ameliorate severity of subsequent infections. This will happen to some degree, but won't be complete amelioration as for smallpox due to
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Yep, exactly. Viruses *necessarily* evolving towards less virulence is incorrect (selection pressure is on transmission: tragically free to kill the host afterwards without affecting evolutionary fitness) but infected/vaccinated people—on average—get lighter disease next round.
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Replying to @zeynep @jbloom_lab and
Why do you put infected/vaccinated people into the same basket regarding how they respond to subsequent infections with cov2?
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