Recent studies have lent support for a variety of hypotheses explaining the debilitating symptoms affecting millions of people after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Canadian researchers identify a highly mutated variant of the virus in white-tailed deer and link it to a human COVID-19 case in the region—though they emphasize that the infection risk to people is low.
Researchers used sequencing data and phenotypic traits to predict which of 5,400 species were most likely to be susceptible to contracting and spreading the virus back to humans.
A handful of factors tip the scales in making a virus more likely to trigger a disruptive global outbreak. Right now, scientists tend to rank influenza, coronaviruses, and Nipah virus as the biggest threats.
A coronavirus has been commanding the headlines for months, but strains of influenza and paramyxovirus are extremely dangerous pathogens that could spark outbreaks.