TY - JOUR

T1 - Candidate historical events for the emergence of Human Coronavirus OC43

T2 - A critical reassessment of the molecular evidence

AU - Shaw, Brandon

AU - Gatherer, Derek

N1 - Copyright: © 2023 Shaw, Gatherer. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2023/5/9

Y1 - 2023/5/9

N2 - The "Russian Influenza"-coronavirus theory (RICT) proposes that the pandemic of 1889-1892, conventionally regarded as an influenza pandemic, was caused by the emergence of human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43) as a zoonosis of bovine coronavirus (BCoV). RICT is based on a Bayesian phylogenetic calculation of the date of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of HCoV-OC43 and BCoV. The theory also draws on comparison of both symptoms and some epidemiological parameters of the best studied coronavirus pandemic, i.e. COVID-19, with those reported in 1889-1892. The case is completed with circumstantial evidence involving a panzoonotic among cattle in the decade prior to the "Russian Influenza", with characteristics suggesting it may have been caused by BCoV. In this paper, we review the Bayesian phylogenetic evidence for RICT, replicating previous studies and adding our own, in each case critically reviewing the suitability of the datasets used and the parameters applied. We conclude that the most probable date for the MRCA of HCoV-OC43 and BCoV is 1898-1902. This is a decade too late for compatibility with RICT but happens to coincide with another serious outbreak of respiratory illness, reported in both the USA and the UK, in the winter of 1899-1900.

AB - The "Russian Influenza"-coronavirus theory (RICT) proposes that the pandemic of 1889-1892, conventionally regarded as an influenza pandemic, was caused by the emergence of human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43) as a zoonosis of bovine coronavirus (BCoV). RICT is based on a Bayesian phylogenetic calculation of the date of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of HCoV-OC43 and BCoV. The theory also draws on comparison of both symptoms and some epidemiological parameters of the best studied coronavirus pandemic, i.e. COVID-19, with those reported in 1889-1892. The case is completed with circumstantial evidence involving a panzoonotic among cattle in the decade prior to the "Russian Influenza", with characteristics suggesting it may have been caused by BCoV. In this paper, we review the Bayesian phylogenetic evidence for RICT, replicating previous studies and adding our own, in each case critically reviewing the suitability of the datasets used and the parameters applied. We conclude that the most probable date for the MRCA of HCoV-OC43 and BCoV is 1898-1902. This is a decade too late for compatibility with RICT but happens to coincide with another serious outbreak of respiratory illness, reported in both the USA and the UK, in the winter of 1899-1900.

KW - OC43

KW - HCoV-OC43

KW - coronavirus

KW - Coronaviridae

KW - human coronavirus

KW - pandemic

KW - zoonosis

KW - history

KW - Bayesian phylogenetics

KW - Victorian era

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0285481

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0285481

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 37155606

VL - 18

JO - PLoS One

JF - PLoS One

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 5

M1 - e0285481

ER -