8 votes

A new, infectious coronavirus is detected in Malaysia – and it's coming from dogs

4 comments

  1. skybrian
    (edited )
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...] Edit: added quote about when the samples were taken. This virus may be new to science, but it’s not new.

    From the article:

    When the COVID-19 pandemic first exploded, Dr. Gregory Gray started to wonder if there might be other coronaviruses out there, already making people sick and threatening to trigger another outbreak.

    [...]

    So he challenged a graduate student in his lab, Leshan Xiu, to make a more powerful test — one that would work like a COVID-19 test but could detect all coronaviruses, even the unknown ones.

    [...]

    In the first batch of samples tested last year, Gray and Xiu found evidence of an entirely new coronavirus associated with pneumonia in hospitalized patients — mostly in kids. This virus may be the eighth coronavirus known to cause disease in people, the team reports Thursday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

    The samples came from patients at a hospital in Sarawak, Malaysia, taken by a collaborator in 2017 and 2018.

    [...]

    "There's no evidence yet of transmission from human to human," says virologist Xumin Zhang at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. But it's not known how these patients became infected with the virus, or if they had direct contact with infected animals.

    Edit: added quote about when the samples were taken. This virus may be new to science, but it’s not new.

    7 votes
  2. [2]
    ImmobileVoyager
    Link
    I am way out of my league here, but I understand that there are millions of viruses out there, of which only a few thousand species are catalogued. I don't know whether the viron being shaped like...

    I am way out of my league here, but I understand that there are millions of viruses out there, of which only a few thousand species are catalogued. I don't know whether the viron being shaped like a crown has any significance as to the pathogenic potential.

    Anyway, with all due respect for the National Public Radio, reading the radio may not be the best way to learn about virology ;-)

    3 votes
    1. skybrian
      Link Parent
      Due to the headline you might be seeing this as “a new virus to be alarmed about” but I think it’s more about the science being interesting and that it points towards having better surveillance of...

      Due to the headline you might be seeing this as “a new virus to be alarmed about” but I think it’s more about the science being interesting and that it points towards having better surveillance of emerging viruses. They don’t seem to know yet that people got sick because of this virus, or whether it’s a coincidence.

      I don’t think NPR is doing any worse at summarizing recent scientific work than a mainstream newspaper. This article is more in-depth than most. The reporters interviewed the scientists and told their story in a responsible way, which I think is about the best you can do. Here is the paper if you’re interested.

      5 votes
  3. ImmobileVoyager
    Link
    Thanks for this balanced counterpoint and for the original paper. May the science be with you.

    Thanks for this balanced counterpoint and for the original paper. May the science be with you.

    1 vote