• Question: What caused the corona virus?

    Asked by anon-239090 to James, Hannah, Claire, Chris, binuraj, Alice on 13 Mar 2020. This question was also asked by anon-239092, anon-238808.
    • Photo: Binuraj Menon

      Binuraj Menon answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      Hi GraceDavis,

      Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses. Some cause illness in people, and others, such as canine and feline coronaviruses, only infect animals. Rarely, animal coronaviruses that infect animals have emerged to infect people and can spread between people. This is suspected to have occurred for the virus that causes COVID-19. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) are two other examples of coronaviruses that originated from animals and then spread to people.

    • Photo: Hannah Blyth

      Hannah Blyth answered on 14 Mar 2020: last edited 14 Mar 2020 12:07 pm

      Hello, again Grace 🙂 As someone who studies a plant infecting fungus, a human infecting virus is a bit out of my zone so please don’t think I have all the facts! It is suspected that covid19, as Binuraj says in his answer, is an animal coronavirus that has managed to cross over to also infect people. The animal source of the latest outbreak has NOT been identified, so while a lot of people online are saying the original host might have been pangolins, or bats or even a bat virus that then infected chicken, the scientists studying the virus are not yet sure. So the answer is nobody really knows! The best thing we can do is to focus on following the advice of healthcare professionals to limit the spread of the virus (washing hands!).

Comments