Researchers Uncover Features That Distinguish SARS-COV-2 From Less Severe Coronaviruses

While SARS-COV-2, the cause of our current pandemic, can exert severe health repercussions for those who become ill from infection, not all coronaviruses are so deadly. This is why it’s such good news that researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found unique genomic features of SARS-COV-2 and other deadly iterations that distinguish them from the more benign members of the coronavirus family. These unique features can help scientists predict, through genomic analysis, severity of future outbreaks of SARS-COV-2, and whether coronaviruses currently seen only in animals may have the capacity to infect humans. The results of the NIH research were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read more here.