BC Researchers find 9 New Species of Coronavirus

A team of researchers from UBC (University of British Columbia), discovered several new species of COVID-19, some of which were found in questionable places such as animal feces. The discoveries were outlined in a news release on Wednesday January 26th, from the University of British Columbia. The research project was led by a former UBC post-doctoral research fellow, who led an international team in an analysis of RNA sequencing data. The UBC team stated that the data had come from 5,700,000 biological samples. We are Entering a new era of identifying the genetics of viruses in nature and how a variety of animals interact with these viruses. With the help of a ridiculously powerful supercomputer built by the UBC and Amazon Web Services, the research team said they had found nearly 10 times more RNA viruses than there were previously known. In total, the project report found 32,000 RNA viruses. Only 15,000 were known before the project. The finding of the new 9 COVID-19 species cost around $24,000 and 11 days.

With such powerful new tools at the disposal of dedicated teams of scientists, it is hard to imagine what migt be discovered next.