Coronavirus has been around for a long time
by Karin L. Nauber
There has been a common misconception going around for the past year about the coronavirus. That misconception is that the COVID-19 strain is the first we’ve ever seen or heard of the coronavirus.
Nope. It isn’t and by all estimates of research, it certainly will not be the last.
It is, however, a “novel” coronavirus, meaning this strain is “new” or “novel.”
According to a report from BBC News written by Steven Brocklehurst, the first human coronavirus was discovered around 1964 by June Almeida.
In all actuality, Almeida would probably not have been anyone’s guess to make such a discovery.
She was the daughter of a Scottish bus driver, who left school at 16. She went on to become a “pioneer of virus imaging, whose work has come roaring back into focus during the present pandemic,” wrote Brocklehurst.
While COVID-19 is a new illness, it is still caused by the coronavirus type that Almeida identified in 1964 at her lab in St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, according to the BBC article. . .