Beijing, Feb 24: Virologists in China have discovered a new bat coronavirus that might cause animal-to-human transmission, just like Covid-19 did five years ago. The new virus called HKU5-CoV-2 was found by a team of virologists led by Shi Zhengli, the famed scientist known as “Batwoman” for her lifetime work in coronaviruses, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.According to Chinese researchers, the new virus has similarities to SARS-CoV-2, which caused the pandemic that caused the entire globe to stay still and took tens of lakhs of lives. Researchers said that the new virus can infiltrate human cells called ACE2 the same way Covid did. It also has similarities to NL63, a common cold virus.
