In some potentially quite important news out of China, researches have reportedly discovered a new bat coronavirus that is similar to the infamous SARS-COVID-19 virus that caused the 2020-21 Covid pandemic that saw lockdowns, intense social media spats, censorship, and massive amounts of money printing.
According to reports out of China, the new virus, which is being called HKU5-CoV-2, was discovered by a team of virologists in China, and it reportedly carries a very real risk of animal-to-human transmission. Leading the research team that discovered the new virus was a Chinese researcher named Shi Zhengli, who is reportedly called “batwoman” because of her Wuhan Institute-based research on bat coronaviruses.
Media website NDTV, describing the newly discovered virus, said: “HKU5-CoV-2 is a coronavirus belonging comes from the merbecovirus subgenus, which also includes the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Scientists found that the new virus can bind to human ACE2, making it similar to SARS-CoV-2 and NL63 (a common cold virus).”
According to the researchers in their report on the virus, it has the potential to infect humans, but the full details on potential animal-to-human transmission have not yet been investigated. The study said, media outlet Newsweek reports, “Bat merbecoviruses, which are phylogenetically related to MERS-CoV, pose a high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts.”
Continuing, the researchers said in their report that the newly discovered virus appears better adapted to binding to the human ACE2, leading to successful transmission to humans, than other variants. It said, “Structural and functional analyses indicate that HKU5-CoV-2 has a better adaptation to human ACE2 than lineage 1 HKU5-CoV.”
Concluding that part of the report, the researchers concluded that there is the potential of animal-to-human and then human-to-human transmission, saying, “Authentic HKU5-CoV-2 infected human ACE2-expressing cell lines and human respiratory and enteric organoids. This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human ACE2 and underscores their potential zoonotic risk.”
Commenting on the matter to Fox News Digital, Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and a senior medical analyst for Fox News Digital, said, “In this case, Shi-Zhengli discovered that a pipistrellus species of bats is carrying a HKU5-COV2 coronavirus that is a cousin of the MERS virus, which caused a limited outbreak in humans in 2012.”
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Dr. Siegel added that there appears to be the potential for human-to-human infection, saying, “This particular strain has an ability to bind to the same receptor in the lungs, nose and respiratory passages that allowed SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) to infect humans — so there is a chance of what is known as zoonotic spillover, where this virus could also infect humans and go human to human.”
Dr. Siegel further added, commenting on the potential social effects of the virus, that it is important that we refuse to “give in to fear” about it, saying, “Even as we continue to investigate potential human pathogens, and even as we prepare for possible pandemics, it is very important that we not give in to fear.”
He further noted, on that point, that though the 2020-21 Covid pandemic was a disaster, it’s important to remember that the discovery of this virus doesn’t mean that such a pandemic will repeat. He said, “The COVID pandemic is the worst in a century, but it doesn’t mean another is about to happen from bird flu or this or anything else.”
Featured image credit: By Haneeshkm – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109286860