China and other Asian countries are currently experiencing four epidemics: African Swine Fever, H5N1 Bird Flu, H1N1 Swine Flu, and Coronavirus. Millions of poultry and pigs have been slaughtered to control the spread of the viruses. The Spanish Flu, of 1918, was H1N1 bird flu, which spread worldwide and killed millions, spread from people-to-pigs, and later reemerged in 2009 as Swine Flu. Chlamydia psittacosis may have been spreading, in 1918, as a co-epidemic, at a time when the ability to diagnose and distinguish pathogens was limited and chlamydia psittacosis was thought to be a virus. The H5N1 bird flu has spread rapidly among poultry and birds, in many of the same countries and areas hit hardest by coronavirus; and has had documented transmission to humans, with a mortality rate as high as 50-60%.
The 2008 article “Pandemic Influenza and Pregnant Women”, predicted the mechanism for development of the coronavirus—cross species transmission of bird pathogens, and the evolution of pathogens in co-infected animals and humans. The coronavirus likely evolved in co-infected poultry, birds/bats, and mammals (pigs and/or pangolins), from pathogens that are endemic in poultry, birds/bats and mammals, in the area.
When the coronavirus evolved to allow person-to-person spread, the virus may have actually become less deadly than the pathogens currently causing the four epidemics in animals, in China and Asia, with significantly less mortality from coronavirus than from the H5N1 bird flu. We hope!
Pandemic Influenza and Pregnant Women https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600164/
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