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by zachguo 2202 days ago
Hospitals are obligated to report to the CDC once they discover pneumonia caused by an unknown virus that can transmit from human to human. SARS or COVID is just a name scientists gave to the sequenced virus.
2 comments
theli0nheart 2202 days ago
This is a nit, but SARS and COVID aren't the names of the respective viral agents; they're the names for the diseases that the viruses cause.

The virus that causes SARS is called SARS-CoV, and the virus that causes COVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2

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objektif 2202 days ago
If you don't know then you don't have to report. I don't think initially they knew that human to human transmission was possible.
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