Coronavirus: Research round-up – 1 April
Virus may have been circulating for a while, mobile phones have more RNA than toilets and call to look into humidity link
SARS-CoV-2 may have been around prior to outbreaks: Aussie research
COVID-19 may have been circulating years before it was first detected in Wuhan, China, according to findings in Nature Medicine.
Researchers from Australia, the US and UK say their analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses shows no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.
The team is exploring two other hypotheses: that the virus evolved its particular characteristics in an animal host — perhaps pangolins — before being transmitted to humans; or that it jumped to humans some time ago and has evolved its current characteristics in the human population.
