This date looks quite intriguing because, as mentioned above, in the years 1898-1890 a terrible pandemic broke out in the world – the most severe pandemic of the 19th century – which was caused by a respiratory infection. Moreover, it was preceded by a global epidemic of what scientists of that time considered cattle pleuropneumonia. It was always believed that the Russian or Asian flu of 1889-1890 was actually a type of flu. However, there is no direct evidence for this, and some of its symptoms are not characteristic of influenza. Since they were ill with a huge number of people, this means that they had practically no constitutional immunity. That is, it is likely that the virus turned out to be new to humans, and the coincidence in time with the surge in the incidence of OC43 leads to quite definite conclusions.
It is believed that the first case of infection occurred in Bukhara, in Central Asia, in the spring of 1889, but by October outbreaks began in Constantinople and St. Petersburg. In December, military hospitals in the Russian capital were overcrowded, factories and workshops were closed due to a lack of labor, and “people left the city in whole areas,” as one report said. Symptoms of the disease included headache, fever, aching joints, a rash on the face, and swelling on the hands. The illness lasted an average of five or six days, but in some cases it tormented patients for several weeks.
In November, this virus reached Paris. By the end of the year, when all hospitals were already crowded, patients were placed in military huts and tents in city parks. Many schools have closed. In Vienna, schools closed ahead of schedule for the Christmas holidays and remained closed until the end of January. In Berlin, a lot of postal workers got this virus. In London, so many lawyers fell ill with them that the courts had to be closed for a while. One day, when he arrived at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, Dr. Samuel West discovered that more than 1,000 people had gathered in the emergency room, most of whom were men.
In all countries, capitals and port cities were the first to suffer and suffered the most, because they were the centers of rail and sea transportation. This virus has affected even famous and influential people. They were infected by the Russian tsar, the young king of Spain, the president of France, the Queen of Sweden and Lord Salisbury. In Turin, the Duke of Aosta, who was not long King of Spain, died of this virus – as did the German Empress Augustus and Lord Napier. Meanwhile, newspapers with mass circulation began to fan general alarm.
According to current estimates, in St. Petersburg mortality peaked in the week ending December 1, 1889, in Germany on December 22, in Paris on January 5, 1980, in the United States on January 12. Indicator R0 (virus reproduction index characterizing its infectivity – approx. ed.) amounted to 2.1, and mortality was estimated at about 0.1-0.28% – these figures are almost identical to the data for the current pandemic.
At that time, newspapers wrote that, like the current coronavirus, the Russian flu virus affected adults more often than children — it happened that all teachers fell ill in schools and the children remained healthy. As is the case with the current coronavirus, men suffered the disease harder than women. Newspapers daily published data on new deaths, stories of specific people, and encouraging editorial columns.
In 1890, not everyone accepted the microbial theory of infectious diseases, and scientists still had to separate the viruses from the bacteria. At that time, the miasma theory was still popular, according to which the cause of pandemics was bad air, and the speed with which the disease spread throughout the world made us look for other explanations, not just transmission from person to person, although the reason for the rapid spread of the virus around the world itself It became a railway connection. An article appeared in one editorial column in Lancet magazine, the author of which pointed out that the beginning of this epidemic was preceded by earthquakes: “Can’t this dangerous disease be the result of harmful fumes of the Earth?”
By March 1980, the pandemic was already declining in most countries – as is often the case with current colds and flu, which are gradually dying out in the spring. The seasonality of colds and flu is absolutely obvious, so it should not be considered a coincidence that the current pandemic also began to subside by May around the world – regardless of the policies of the authorities of individual countries. By the beginning of the summer of 1890, the virus moved to the Southern Hemisphere, reaching Australia in March. He returned to Europe next winter, and this went on for several years.
If the cause of the 1889-1890 pandemic was the OC43 virus – of course, this has not yet been proven – and given that today it causes one out of every ten colds, we can say that its virulence has decreased markedly. You can easily track how this happens with respiratory viruses that are transmitted when people talk to each other or shake hands. Mutations of the virus, which determine the severity of the course of the disease, also affect how it is transmitted further: if the virus does not allow you to get out of bed, you simply cannot pass it on to many other people. In the course of the inevitable struggle for survival, more harmless strains of the virus will gradually supplant more dangerous varieties. That is why many viruses cause us a runny nose, but only a few can kill us.
Perhaps the level of collective immunity can also mitigate the effects of the virus – even if people do not have full and long-term immunity. Cross-immunity also plays a role, because those who already have colds caused by other coronaviruses do not get infected with covid-19 or tolerate it in a mild form.
However, there is a very disturbing moment in this situation: can it be that the lockdown prevents the natural flow of this evolutionary process, locking this disease in places where it can flourish and remain fatal, such as hospitals? Our future is obvious now: without a vaccine and in the absence of an effective medicine, covid-19 will gradually subside, then will return again, but at the same time it will be less deadly, and in the end it will become indistinguishable from a common cold.
InoSMI materials contain estimates of exclusively foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
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