Where was the new variant of COVID-19 first detected?
A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in the heavily populated province of Gauteng.
What is the official name of the coronavirus?
From “Wuhan virus” to “novel coronavirus-2019” to “COVID-19 virus,” the name of the new coronavirus that first appeared in China has been evolving to its now official designation: SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2).
When was the COVID-19 Mu variant first detected?
The epicenter of mu transmission is Colombia, where the variant was first isolated on January 11, 2021 (Figure 1A and Table S2). There was a huge surge in Covid-19 cases in Colombia from March through July 2021.
Where did the COVID-19 come from?
Experts say SARS-CoV-2 originated in bats. That’s also how the coronaviruses behind Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) got started.
Did covid-19 spread from a lab in China?
The new details, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, add to the body of circumstantial evidence that supports a hypothesis that the Covid-19 virus may have spread to humans after it escaped from a Chinese research lab in Wuhan. But the evidence is far from conclusive.
Can covid-19 be made from other viruses?
COVID-19 is sufficiently unlike other viruses to have been created from them, and making a virus in the lab from scratch would be “virtually impossible,” said Stanley Perlman, MD, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Was covid-19 circulating in Wuhan earlier than we thought?
Questions include whether the symptoms seen were of coronavirus or bad flu (or something else) and whether the sickness – if it was coronavirus – was related to work in their lab, or simply suggests that Covid-19 was circulating in the general population in Wuhan a few weeks earlier than assumed.