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gravi-tea t1_j23s5yy wrote

Bat origin is an unproven theory. One possibility is that the virus originated in bats and was passed to another animal where it evolved to become SARS-CoV-2.

Bats have really interesting immune systems which are really good at combating viruses. For this reason they may make a good candidate for viruses to evolve and jump to another species.

And since bats are so good at fighting off viruses the original virus would no longer exist.

Technical sidenote: keep in mind that COVID-19 is the disease associated with the virus which is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 or SARS-Cov-2.

Edit: added "severe acute respiratory syndrome"

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jqbr t1_j282v66 wrote

I would edit that to remove "coronavirus-2 or" -- it's not nearly the second coronavirus ever detected and I don't think it's ever been referred to by that label (other than in your comment). Wikipedia says "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2)" -- you can't just drop the first 4 words.

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