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Profile of a killer: the complex biology powering the coronavirus pandemic

Scientists are piecing together how SARS-CoV-2 operates, where it came from and what it might do next — but pressing questions remain about the source of COVID-19.
  1. David Cyranoski

    1. David Cyranoski reports for Nature from Shanghai, China.

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Cartoon showing forensic-like board linking various COVID-19 related images.

Illustration by Fabio Buonocore

In 1912, German veterinarians puzzled over the case of a feverish cat with an enormously swollen belly. That is now thought to be the first reported example of the debilitating power of a coronavirus. Veterinarians didn’t know it at the time, but coronaviruses were also giving chickens bronchitis, and pigs an intestinal disease that killed almost every piglet under two weeks old.

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Nature 581, 22-26 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01315-7

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