#14,631
There's a media report this morning in the Wall Street Journal (link : New Virus Discovered by Chinese Scientists Investigating Pneumonia Outbreak) that cites unidentified Chinese sources as saying a novel coronavirus has been genetically sequenced from one of the Wuhan pneumonia cases, and has subsequently been found in some of the other hospitalized cases.
The origin of this coronavirus is not clear, nor is it certain that it is the cause of all of the illness in this outbreak. The virus is said to be similar to other bat-borne coronaviruses that have been identified since the SARS outbreak of 2003.All of this information is quite preliminary, and I've found no official corroboration, but a novel coronavirus has been high on the list of suspects since word of this outbreak first emerged.
Some past blogs on bat-borne coronaviruses in China include:
Curr. Opinion Virology: Viruses In Bats & Potential Spillover To Animals And Humans
EID Journal: A New Bat-HKU2–like Coronavirus in Swine, China, 2017
Emerg. Microbes & Infect.: Novel Coronaviruses In Least Horseshoe Bats In Southwestern China
SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence
