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Comment by aclsid | Hacker News Reader

It was reported in the BBC today that while SARS originated in bats, the vector for humans were a species of cats that got the disease from the bats.

For coronavirus what we know so far is that it originated in a seafood market, but as to what species was eaten that is speculation at this point.

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The vector was civets, which are not cats. See the evolutionary tree here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feliformia#Phylogenetic_tree

Felidae are cats, and Viverridae are civets (closer to hyenas and mongooses).

Not at all making light of it, but with the cats and the bats, my mind wanders to David Bowie's apocalyptic "Future Legend": "Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats..." The lyrics actually speak to the sort of fear this elicits: "And in the death,/As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy/Thoroughfare ... And red, mutant, eyes gaze down on Hunger City."

I've seen at least one report that says the first known patient (who is not necessarily the one who caught the disease from an animal) never visited the Wuhan market.

Despite all the media stating it as fact, it's not certain where it came from yet, just likely.

Comparison between "Bat SARS-like coronavirus" and the "Wuhan seafood market pneumonia virus" seems to show a 100% match:

https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?RID=2PUA1EJK114&CMD...

Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1 has been known since at least 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_SARS-like_coronavirus_WIV1

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