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Was the 1889-1895 "Russian Flu" corona related ?

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Dutch Josh View Drop Down
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    Posted: July 06 2020 at 2:51am

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_flu_pandemic[/url] DJ-There is a new discussion on how to explain findings of anti-bodies in old antibody tests (from the 50"s) of people who did get "the Russian Flu". Some claim flu-virus antibodies go back further (to 1881) and the "Flu" was in fact an introduction of a cow-related coronavirus into the human species-started in China. 

From the wikipedialink: After the SARS epidemic, virologists started sequencing and comparing human and animal coronaviruses, and comparison of two virus strains in the Betacoronavirus 1 species, Bovine coronavirus and Human coronavirus OC43 indicated that they had a most recent common ancestor in the late 19th century, with several methods yielding most probable dates around 1890.[5][16] Authors speculated that an introduction of the former strain to the human population might have caused the epidemic.[5]

[url]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC544107/[/url] 

[url]https://web.archive.org/web/20100429163011/http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/1889-russian-flu-pandemic/[/url]

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 06 2020 at 3:06am

DJ-If corona-virus introduction into humans can cause a flu-like pandemic it most likely did happen earlier. These corona-virusses end up giving people a cold. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome[/url] and [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome[/url] "Post Viral Syndrome". 

Is [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome[/url] in some ways comparable with how people have chronic healthissues after Covid19. Can "common"cold-corona-virusses result in long term healthissues-just like sometimes "mild/asymptomatic cases" of Covid19-in wich the patient feels as if there is no problem-turn out to have more severe-first unnoticed-damage. 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 06 2020 at 3:24am

From [url]https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/een-vergeten-hoofdstuk-de-coronacrisis-van-1890~b0b9facb/[/url] via google translate

ANALYSIS VIRUSES
A forgotten chapter: the corona crisis (?) Of 1890

A somewhat forgotten chapter in medical history: 130 years ago, a mysterious lung disease suddenly swept around the world that seriously disrupted life. Has what we are experiencing today happened before?

Maarten Keulemans June 12, 2020, 2:31 PM
It had been rumbling there in the east for some time. In St. Petersburg, "half the city had been thrown on the bed of disease." And in Krakow and Dantzig (Gdansk) "almost everyone encountered has had the disease," the newspapers of the time wrote.

But hey, you would worry. It was just the flu. "A disease from which no one dies," assured Mr. Janssen, inspector of the Brussels health service. "There is every reason to suppose that in countries where the hygiene requirements are more attentive, the germs of the disease are more difficult to transmit," said the newspaper in Rotterdam.

And then, in December 1889, the disease came. The epidemic spread at breakneck speed to Berlin, Vienna, London and Paris. Soldiers and postal workers were killed in Antwerp and Brussels. In Italy there were outbreaks in telegraphy centers and the fire brigade became disrupted. University education failed in France and Germany. And on December 16, the first Dutch patients were there: sixty sailors from the warship Prince of Orange, admitted to the Marine Hospital in Hellevoetsluis. 'Influenza. It is nothing but influenza that is heard everywhere, "sighed the Dagblad van Zuid-Holland, barely a week after the Rotterdams Nieuwsblad had written that it would get loose.

Because flu, said the doctors of those days, was what this looked like the most. The "Russian flu," as the disease was soon called, presented with "lethargy legs," an "infectious cough" and, noticeably, severe headaches "down to the roots of the hair." A fever with a fairly high temperature soon followed. The disease usually persisted for five or six days, and then usually subsides gradually.

You would say that is not so bad. But as now, the biggest problem was that the disease was new. Almost everyone who came into contact with it became ill. In Berlin and Paris, postal delivery failed and schools were closed, in Serbia the country administration went into recess, in Antwerp the Christmas holidays were brought forward because one in three was ill.

And with so many patients, the number of patients with complications was also documented. Pneumonia, usually. Emergency barracks were erected at the major European hospitals to receive the sick. "It is no longer being laughed about, like when the disease first arrived," commented a comment. "Death strikes again and again." In Madrid alone, 200 to 300 people died every day, newspapers reported. They were buried at night to avoid panic.


The flu? It could have been something completely different, thinks Marc Van Ranst, professor of virology in Leuven. A new virus, just spread from the animal kingdom. "I know estimates that ten million people worldwide have died from this condition," says Van Ranst, over the phone from Belgium.

Van Ranst more or less accidentally discovered the pandemic when he and his colleagues studied the origin of a virus called OC43 (after 'organ culture', culture tissue from which British colds researchers isolated the virus in 1967). A coronavirus, just like the current covid virus, but more innocent: OC43 is responsible for about 10 to 15 percent of all colds.

The virus must have spread to humans for the first time. To find out, Van Ranst compared the virus to its closest relative, a bovine coronavirus. This allowed the group to estimate: it must have been about a century and a half ago that both viruses had their last common ancestor. Around 1890.

"It is tempting," noted Van Ranst in the journal Journal of Virology in 2005, "to speculate that the pandemic of 1889-1890 was the result of the transmission of bovine coronavirus to humans." What we are experiencing now would 1890 have already happened.

And that thought is still tempting, says Van Ranst, still gripped by the idea. For example, a coronavirus would explain why so many pain complaints were reported at the time: OC43 is known to infect nerve cells. Another thing: "I understand from Russian sources that at the time, symptoms such as loss of taste and smell were also reported," says Van Ranst. "Very striking. Because that is a symptom that we are also seeing now. "


Investigations in the historical archives turn out to be more strange. Because although most people called the disease "influenza" and the pandemic has also gone down in history under that name - what else could it be? - the disease had strikingly unusual symptoms.


Like a rash. Often the patients had "a red rash on the face," and a "reddish, swollen face," the newspapers of the time wrote, "so that the doctors also think of measles shortly after the performance."

And there was indeed nerve pain. The patients often experienced stabbing pain in the head, back and extremities. Pain was usually the first symptom before the high fever came along. "It felt like I was beaten with bats for an hour, then thrown in an ice bath," as an American patient summarized.

The diagnosis flu, some doctors said, could be "not true." When the hospital filled up with infected soldiers in Amsterdam, the Algemeen Handelsblad reported: "The true flu, the influenza, cannot be observed with these soldiers." Or take the doctor James Cantlie, who gave the earliest description of the disease in the British Medical Journal magazine. The word flu never occurred to him: because of the rash, he had dubbed the "tropical measles" condition. "Some called it German measles, others called catarrhal fever, rheumatism with fever, etc.," Cantlie writes. "No two medical men agreed on a suitable term."

Something else stands out in the medical and newspaper archives that de Volkskrant looked through: the outbreak of 1889 did not only affect people. Cats also fell ill. Just like with Sars in 2003, and the new coronavirus now. "The domestic cat that lived in the stable became snotty in the eyes and nose, but recovered," said a collection of case reports by British doctors. "Three stray cats that the domestic cat came into contact with died after a short period of illness." Dozens of similar anecdotes count the bundle, of cats and sometimes dogs that fell ill at the same time as their owner.


But at Utrecht University, virologist Raoul de Groot, who has been researching OC43 for many years, is not convinced. In the event of major outbreaks, it often happens that such a new virus also infects other hosts, he says. Just as the current coronavirus also occasionally infects cats, minks, dogs or zoo tigers. "It is interesting that apparently domestic animals were infected in 1890. But you cannot deduce from that what kind of virus it was. "

De Groot thinks the idea that it was a corona virus is 'interesting', but he has his doubts. "You find this date and see an outbreak around that time. Then you are inclined to make this connection, "he also understands. "But the results of this kind of analysis are basically rough estimates. Other studies suggest that OC43 crossed the species boundary to humans much more recently. "

Such as a study conducted by microbiologist Patrick Woo and colleagues from the University of Hong Kong ten years ago. By comparing the genetic code of 29 OC43 viruses, Woo concluded that the viruses must have had their last common ancestor not in 1890, but in the 1950s. That means that the jump to humans may have gone without a lot of trouble, De Groot thinks. "It may well be that OC43 has manifested itself as a common cold virus from the outset."

The problem, says professor of molecular virology Ron Fouchier (Erasmus MC), is that the results of pedigree research on viruses sometimes rattle. Estimates such as those of Van Ranst and Woo assume that a virus, like a kind of stopwatch, evolves at a more or less constant pace. "But it is not," says Fouchier. "We know from the flu virus, for example, that the rate at which it changes can vary greatly per host."


Fouchier himself conducted research into the hepatitis B virus, which had been calculated using the "stopwatch method" to be no more than fifteen hundred years old. Until Fouchier and his colleagues discovered the virus in the molars of thousands of years old mummies and calculated that it is already fifteen thousand years old. "A factor of ten older," he says. "What we calculate with our mathematical models can sometimes be completely wrong."

In the Europe of 1890, the fear was good in the meantime. Monarchs such as the Tsar of Russia, the Queen of Sweden and the Countess of Flanders fell ill; prominent figures such as the wife of German chancellor Bismarck, Dutch painter Louis Artan and the popular 28-year-old British prince "Eddy" died. "Those who cough loudly in a tram these days are in danger of being put out of the car by the conductor, on the unanimous order of the other passengers," noted the Rotterdam newspaper that winter. "The rental driver refuses to record anyone whose voice is hoarse."

Interestingly, the 1888 outbreak appears to have started in southern China, a breeding ground for bat viruses that also harbor the sars virus, Cantlie's description shows. The following year, the disease progressed: from a tropical fever with spots, to a disease "in many cases with many more lung problems," said Cantlie. That was the form in which the disease swept across the world.

The outbreak would last at least five years. The first wave, which engulfed Europe and the US, continued throughout the year 1890. It then became quiet for a while, until the disease flared up again in the spring of 1891. Followed by at least three more revivals: the winter of 1891-1892, the winter of 1893-1894, and early 1895. Then the disease disappeared from the radar. The germ was repressed, evolved into something else, or - if it was OC43 - it finally settled in humans in the form of a cold.

"OC43 still causes the more severe colds," says Van Ranst. "That gives hope that the corona virus we are dealing with today may one day become a bad cold virus."


What if it wasn't a coronavirus? What mysterious germ did the "Russian flu" cause? We presented the disease descriptions of yesteryear to several infectious disease experts from home and abroad - but no one has an unanimous answer.

Maybe it was a parvovirus, causing the "fifth disease", a herpes virus, or an enterovirus perhaps. "It could also very well have played multiple illnesses side by side," e-mails internist-infectiologist Jaap van Dissel. "For example influenza and measles or rubella, with characteristic snotty and rash." Or it was something completely different: "It is impossible to say what it was then based on the symptoms," says professor of epidemiology Roel Coutinho (Utrecht University ).

You should be out and about, says Fouchier, to look for a patch of permafrost buried with frozen pandemic victims, with perhaps some molecular patches of the virus in their lungs. In this way, it eventually succeeded in reconstructing the Spanish flu virus of 1918. "Who knows what we will discover then."

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 06 2020 at 3:32am

DJ-There are four known [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Human_coronaviruses[/url]

-[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_NL63[/url]

-[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E[/url]

-[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43[/url] and

-[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_HKU1[/url]  (if links do not work one can copy the link without the url's)

All of these once were introduced in the human species. Covid19 is the fifth corona-virus introduction. (Of course also MERS and SARS are Corona virusses) 

On the 1889-95 pandemic; (from the same [url]https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/een-vergeten-hoofdstuk-de-coronacrisis-van-1890~b0b9facb/[/url]-very good-article)


WAS IT H2N2? Perhaps the most important objection to the idea that a coronavirus was behind the "Russian flu" of 1890, appeared in The Lancet in April 1958. The Rotterdam flu researcher Nic Masurel then made a remarkable discovery in the blood of older people who had experienced the pandemic of 1890: they turned out to be carriers of antibodies against the H2N2 flu. Clear evidence that they had been exposed to the flu variant in their youth. "The facts are thin," emphasizes virologist Ron Fouchier. "But what Masurel concluded is that it must have been an H2N2 virus." When reading the original research article, the result turns out to be less solid than it seems. Masurel found the antibodies in people from 73 and especially 76 years old, "suggesting a possible origin around 1881." So eight years early. But since there was no pandemic around 1881, Masurel used some scientific tape: "One possible explanation is that in the pandemic of 1889-90 schoolchildren had a higher incidence than younger children."

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ViQueen24 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 12 2020 at 1:41pm

Wow, Josh, now you have me curious.  Time to do some research...

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote carbon20 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 12 2020 at 4:06pm






Seems every 100 years or so a pandemic

 Or war happens.....

Just history repeating it's self.....

Round and round we go.....lol

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Technophobe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 12 2020 at 11:23pm

The disease we call 'flu' is not a coronavirus at all.

"Influenza viruses belong to the family Orthomyxoviridae and have a single-stranded segmented RNA genome. 

"  Source: Google attributes this to the WHO.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 12 2020 at 11:48pm

DJ-Techno-of course NOW we know the flu is a virus-different from the corona-virus. In 1890-certainly in Russia, China-that knowledge was not there. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virology[/url] 

In 1933 the virus for the Spanish Flu was found [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virology#Influenza[/url].. 

Certainly in the 19th century illness often was seen as "a punishment from a god" or other "magic". The Middle Ages still did have a "long shadow"...

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Technophobe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2020 at 12:30am

Yep!  Spot on as always, Josh!

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2020 at 5:04am

[url]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/did-a-coronavirus-cause-the-pandemic-that-killed-queen-victorias-heir[/url] ;

The Great Russian Flu of the early 1890s may have been a Covid-like virus that crossed to humans from cows, scientists suggest

-

Yet this epidemic erupted in 1891 when waves of disease swept round the globe, eventually killing more than a million people. The outbreak was later attributed to flu and dubbed the Great Russian Flu pandemic.

However, a group of Belgian scientists has since argued that the pandemic was caused by a different agent: a coronavirus. “It’s a very convincing analysis,” Dr David Matthews, a coronavirus expert at Bristol University, told the Observer. “The scientists used very sophisticated, advanced research and their claim is worth taking seriously.”

The study was led by Belgian biologist Leen Vijgen and her team’s results were published in the Journal of Virology several years ago. Their work, which has re-emerged with the appearance of Covid-19, suggests the coronavirus linked to the 1890 outbreak is likely to have leapt from cows to humans before spreading worldwideIn the case of Covid-19, it is thought bats were the source of the virus.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2020 at 6:26am

DJ-History has many answers ! If the [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_flu_pandemic[/url] indeed had something to do with the OC43 coronavirus [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43[/url] it will be around for seceral years. 

A 2011 study [url]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194943/[/url] may provide more info on the history of this virus. 

The 1889 "flu" may have come from corona-virus in cows. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Infection_in_animals[/url] Coronavirusses in animals are quite common. Recombination does occur in nature (no lab-escape needed). If the 1889 pandemic was a coronavirus disease maybe we underestimate the risk of coronavirusses in (about all kind of) animals. (From horses, swine, cats, rodents, birds and bats). 

It may be very hard to find evidence-but the description of symptoms, much more male patients etc may distinguish it from patterns we see with flu/pneumonia pandemics (in flu more even male/female distribution. less neurological complaints). Maybe it would be possible to look further back in history to see if we can trace [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Infection_in_humans[/url]..

(OC43 Russian Flu of 1889, [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_HKU1[/url], [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E[/url] and [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_NL63[/url]

By the way [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_229E#Research[/url] in a 2014 study chloroquine is mentioned as a form of treatment. 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ViQueen24 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2020 at 8:33am

It certainly sounds like a coronavirus.  But didn't scientists later find that elderly people didn't die from Spanish Influenza because of immunity to an earlier strain of flu?  Did they just surmise that it was the "flu" of 1889 or did they prove it?  My memory is hazy, and I haven't had 5 seconds to look into it...

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Usk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2020 at 9:30am

Interesting it is a mystery why some people are immune. It seems to be no reasonable connection. Areas that are hardest hit llike India . and Brazil with few asymptotic makes you wonder if its that they are just lucky that they may not have come in contact with it

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2020 at 12:25pm

A better link [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_flu_pandemic[/url] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_flu_pandemic (no need for {url] etc for direct links ?)) ;

The most reported effects of the pandemic took place October 1889 – December 1890, with recurrences in March – June 1891, November 1891 – June 1892, winter 1893–1894 and early 1895.

If we could translate this to the present we have the covid19 till 2025 ? 

It is not known for certain what agent was responsible for the pandemic. Since 1950s it has been conjectured to be Influenza A virus subtype H2N2.[4][5][6] A 1999 seroarcheological study asserted the strain to be Influenza A virus subtype H3N8.[7] A 2005 genomic virological study says that "it is tempting to speculate" that the virus might have been not actually an influenza virus, but human coronavirus OC43.[5] Danish researchers reached a similar conclusion in 2020, in a yet-unpublished study.[8]

So it is not clear yet if it was a coronavirus in 1889. 

After the SARS epidemic, virologists started sequencing and comparing human and animal coronaviruses, and comparison of two virus strains in the Betacoronavirus 1 species, Bovine coronavirus and Human coronavirus OC43 indicated that they had a most recent common ancestor in the late 19th century, with several methods yielding most probable dates around 1890.[5][17] Authors speculated that an introduction of the former strain to the human population might have caused the epidemic.[5] In 2020, Danish researchers Lone Simonsen and Anders Gorm Pedersen similarly calculated that the Human coronavirus OC43 had split from bovine coronavirus about 130 years ago, i.e. approximately coinciding with the pandemic in 1889–1890. The calculations was based on genetic comparisons between bovine coronavirus and different strains of OC43. Their research is yet to be published.[8]

Maybe the present Covid19 has close links to the other known corona-virusses in humans (giving the cold) or maybe even some people did see infections of other corona-virusses (from other species-still overseen) giving some protection. 

I remember PP/CM had a female virologist in one of his video's and she mentioned corona-virus was as good as not worth studying before the 2003 SARS outbreak. We may have underestimated coronavirusses-and still need to learn a lot. 

(And I -DJ- have to better check my postings with not working links-if the [url]-thing did change !     )

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Usk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2020 at 8:12pm

Thank you for this vert interesting information fascinating 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 14 2020 at 5:00am

DJ Three "entries" in this discussion; 

-1 Are there statistics on the age distribution of the 1889 "flu" and how do they compare with "normal" flu (+more deaths in young children-sometimes also in young adults) or Covid19 (most deaths 60+, males over represented) ? (I may have to dig a little deeper in the google data-mine, internet may offer some info)

-2 The Spanish Flu virus-samples could be taken from frozen bodies in Alaska. Are there still "Russian Flu" victims in permafrost somewere in Alaska, Canada, Russia or the Himalaya ? (Could it even be the 1889 virus did de-freeze-was eaten by an animal and ended up creating Covid19 ? Another possible link with climate change ???)

-3 Do people from area's hit hard by the 1889 flu turn out to be better protected in the 1918 flu ? (Allthough there were different flu-types-very likely if the 1889 "flu" was not a Covid) ? [url]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261187454_Age-Specific_Mortality_During_the_1918-19_Influenza_Pandemic_and_Possible_Relationship_to_the_1889-92_Influenza_Pandemic[/url] 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261187454_Age-Specific_Mortality_During_the_1918-19_Influenza_Pandemic_and_Possible_Relationship_to_the_1889-92_Influenza_Pandemic

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CRS, DrPH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 14 2020 at 4:42pm

I agree, good job, DJ! 

"Influenza" is from the Italian word "influence."  In earlier days, before molecular virology, I think that a wide variety of infectious diseases were lumped together as "influenza," regardless of agent. 

The possibility of a bovine coronavirus infecting humanity at that time has credibility to me.  Viruses have long had a dance between human hosts and zoonotic species, so we will never know for sure. 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 14 2020 at 10:31pm

CRS, DrPH, I hope we can learn more from this last pandemic of the 19th century-the first that realy went global. From statistic patterns one could learn more. A corona pandemic has a different age and gender distribution then a flu pandemic. 

The idea that-if 1889 was a flu pandemic-could translate in to less cases in most effected area's during 1889-when the Spanish Flu showed up may be "optimistic"-different flu types. 

Victims in permafrost of the 1889-95 "flu" (=influence) could maybe tell more. Links from the wikipediapage on the corona-virustheory;

[url]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC544107/[/url] or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC544107/

and 

[url]https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/kroppen/overraskende-opdagelse-coronavirus-har-tidligere-lagt-verden-ned[/url] or https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/kroppen/overraskende-opdagelse-coronavirus-har-tidligere-lagt-verden-ned (Danish) may tell more.

I think finding out more on this 1889-95 pandemic should be top priority. Not only for the present Covid19 pandemic but also to make a (more) realistic risk assesment for future pandemics. If Covid19=linked to the 1889-95 virus via defrozen victims/climate change it may be even an example of climate change related health risks. There are not only lots of virusses frozen, also a lot of radio active waist may come to the surface (project Centurion=Northern Greenland-but most likely also other "secret" places in Alaska, Canada, Siberia).

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
~Albert Einstein
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 16 2020 at 11:22am

[url]https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/116859/coronavirus-possibly-caused-million-deaths-in-1890-says-marc-van-ranst/[/url] or https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/116859/coronavirus-possibly-caused-million-deaths-in-1890-says-marc-van-ranst/

It is possible that the world experienced a deadly coronavirus epidemic 130 years ago as well, according to Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst.

Many physicians, as well as the population, talked about the “Russian flu,” as the rumours about the disease that spread across the continent in 1889-1890, came from the east. It did not have an official name, but was mainly recorded as “influenza” by doctors, meaning they believed it to be a simple flu virus.


People who were infected got severely ill, according to Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst. “With a lot of symptoms that were totally atypical for a flu,” he told De Volkskrant.

Initially, the people in Europe thought that their better hygienic standards would prevent the flu, that was spreading across Russia, from crossing over. One inspector of the Brussels health service even wrote that the so-called Russian flu was “a disease from which no one dies.”

“Extreme fatigue, high fever, coughing, severe headaches. Russian sources also noted a loss of smell and taste. Very conspicuous. Because that is a symptom we are also seeing right now,” said Van Ranst. “Already in 1890, people said that it was impossible that this was a flu. I do not believe that either. According to my studies, the world then faced a coronavirus pandemic,” he added.


This is not the first time that Van Ranst attributes the Russian flu not to a flu virus, but to a coronavirus. The coronavirus does not only present as the Covid-19 strain that is now spreading across the world, but is a group of viruses that cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal in humans.

In 2005, he and his lab studied the OC43 virus, which today still accounts for 10-15% of all colds, especially the heavier respiratory tract infections.

“Our analyses traced the origin of the OC43 virus back to, coincidentally or not, around the year 1890. Then, in our opinion, the bovine coronavirus jumped over to humans,” Van Ranst said, adding that it is not clear if there was an intermediate link involved or not.

“So, it is very tempting to say that what we are experiencing now also happened in 1890. However, I do not have evidence, of course. You would have to examine lung material from a patient at that time,” Van Ranst said. “But I think it is a very plausible line of thinking,” he added.


Additionally, the history of the OC43 virus may give hope for the future of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. “The OC43 virus has been severely weakened. That does indeed make us hope that it will also happen like that now, but we do not yet know how fast that will go,” Van Ranst said.


We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
~Albert Einstein
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