Our Coronavirus Predicament Isn’t All That New

The great “flu” pandemic of 1889 started in Russia, infecting more than half the inhabitants of Saint Petersburg, then spread rapidly through Europe. Its victims included Prince Albert Victor, the grandson of Queen Victoria. Americans felt safe for a few months — until the first infections appeared in New York, and rail travel quickly spread it to other cities across the U.S. The pandemic ultimately killed 1 million people globally; it killed 13,000 in the U.S., which then had a population of 60 million.

I put quotes around “flu” because that's what, until 15 years ago, most historians and epidemiologists believed it was. Since then, research has uncovered evidence that the 1889 pandemic may actually have been caused by a coronavirus much like today's SARS-CoV-2 — one that leapt to humans from cows rather than bats. Indeed, observers of the 1889 pandemic noted a higher frequency of effects on the central nervous system than was typical for other influenza outbreaks. Such symptoms have been a marked feature of the current pandemic, with many people losing their sense of taste or smell, or suffering from brain swelling or immune-system attacks on nerve tissues.