The coronavirus is an interesting virus to study and there’s something new to learn each day. The official name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes is Covid-19 (coronavirus). Coronavirus are quite common, but they recently came to the attention of the general population because of the current coronavirus outbreak that is going on in the world. Like you mentioned, there are different types of coronaviruses and some of them cause diseases like the common cold. According to the article, “2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Update: Uncoating the Virus” from the American Society for Microbiology, the first human coronavirus was discovered in the 1960s. The American Society for Microbiology says there are four types of coronavirus: “alpha, beta, delta and gamma. Only alpha and beta coronaviruses are known to infect humans .”  Coronaviruses are the second most common viruses for the common cold next to rhinoviruses and both viruses have effects on the  upper respiratory system. There are seven human coronaviruses that have been discovered that you listed above (thank you for sharing) and six of them are common widespread human pathogens (agents that cause disease). The seventh one SARS-CoV-2 ( current coronavirus) is recent and starting to become widespread though.

SARS-COV-1 (sars disease) and MERS-CoV (middle east respiratory syndrome) spread between people who are in close contact. These two coronaviruses are widespread, but the “MERS-CoV was more deadly claiming 30% of the victims that were infected as opposed to the SARS-CoV-1 which killed nearly 10% of the 8, 096 people infected” ( American Society for Microbiology article).

Coronaviruses are quite fascinating to study and they have the largest known single-stranded RNA genome and they can mutate or change their structure which makes it difficult for one vaccine to treat coronavirus diseases. The information about viruses is fascinating and learning new things with more I read, thank you Anita for your insight as well. It was inspirational reading about things.