There were many coronaviruses. Corona means crown in Spanish and the coronavirus has spikes just
like a crown. In this essay, I will be talking about the
alpha coronaviruses and the beta coronaviruses. The first coronavirus was identified in the early 1960’s and is called 229E(an
alpha virus). It was first discovered by Dorothy Hamre, a researcher at the University of
Chicago. She was studying tissues from different students who were
sick and found the virus. The virus was actually isolated in chickens with bronchitis-an inflammation of the bronchial tubes. This was the first coronavirus that could infect
humans. A team at the National Institute of Health discovered a new coronavirus while trying to find causes for 229E. It is called OC43(a beta virus). Investigating for the coronavirus stopped at
one point. Because 229E and OC43 caused mild illnesses they could treat it
like colds. But then in 2003 a new virus emerged. It was called SARS(a beta virus). The outbreak started in China and spread to 29 countries. There were only 8096 infected and 774 deaths. Researchers were so shocked they took a second look. After that 2 other coronaviruses came. They’re called NL63(an
alpha virus) and HKU1(a beta virus). No
one knows why SARS-CoV-
1, MERS-CoV(a beta virus), and SARS-CoV-2(the source which caused COVID-19) are very dangerous with severe symptoms, but the other
4 are not that deadly. One thing in common between all these coronaviruses is that they all come from bats.