Horseshoe Bats Likely Origin Of SARS-CoV-2: Study

A study conducted by researchers at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics has claimed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has most likely orginated in horseshoe bats. The study, published in Nature Microbiology, found that the virus has been circulating unnoticed among bats for decades. Researchers believe that the SARS-CoV-2's receptor-binding motif, important for specificity to human ACE2 receptors, is an ancestral trait shared by bat viruses and not acquired recently through recombination.