Study: New Bat COVID-19 is closely related to SARS-CoV-2

A team of scientists from China and Australia has recently discovered RmYN02 in bats, which is a close relative of SARS-CoV-2 and has similar mutations in the viral genome that occurred as a result of natural evolution, Current Biology reported referring to study.

According to researchers, this discovery should put an end to myths about the laboratory origin of the coronavirus.

Since the discovery of SARS-CoV-2, there have been several unfounded assumptions that the virus is of laboratory origin, said Weifeng Shi, a microbiologist at Shandong First Medical University.

According to him, it was noted that the insertion of amino acids S1 and S2 is very unusual and, possibly, indicates lab manipulations, however, their article very clearly shows that these events occur naturally.

The new COVID-19 was identified by analyzing 302 samples from 227 bats collected in Yunnan in the second half of 2019.

After analyzing the viruses found in these bat samples, scientists were able to detect two more almost complete COVID-19 genomes - RmYN01 and RmYN02.

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