[nradov]

Yes that probably happened several times in human history. There are four other endemic coronaviruses. Most people catch them as children and build up some immunity, so even if they're reinfected later the symptoms are usually less severe. But they can be deadly to immunocompromised patients.

There is some strong circumstantial evidence that the 1889 "Russian flu" pandemic wasn't caused by influenza at all but rather by the emergence of HCoV-OC43. It killed about a million people worldwide.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/