A post was shared on Facebook that allegedly provided evidence that scientists discussed SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, in a 2008 study. However, the study referred to another virus.
The upload contains an image from a 2008 magazine article that used the terms SARS-CoV1, SARS-CoV2 and SARS-CoV3 (here). The accompanying caption reads: “Who can answer this? If SARS-CoV2 is a ‘novel’, then why did they talk about it in 2008? And what is SARS-CoV3? Is this Pandemic 2 [Bill] Gates talked about it? ”
The study was also referenced on Twitter (here , here and here), with users asking, “Why is it not seen in public?” (here).
However, the journal article was not related to COVID-19. According to a team of global health scientists and infection preventers at the Meedan Digital Health Lab, the 2008 study used the terms SARS-CoV1, SARS-CoV2 and SARS-CoV3 to refer to gene fragments of SARS-CoV-1, the virus. causing severe acute respiratory syndrome, abbreviated to SARS (here).
SARs-CoV-1, which caused the SARS epidemic in 2003 and killed 774 people (here), differs from the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that originated in 2019 and originally 2019-nCoV (bit.ly / 3draQws). .
The Meeden scientists explain: “SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, although related, are different viruses and only two of many coronaviruses (named after crown-like dots on the surfaces) in the RNA virus family of Coronaviridae” (here ).
“No virus has yet been identified as SARS-CoV-3 from early 2021,” they add.
More details on the 2008 study can be found here.
VERDICT
Untrue. A 2008 study does not refer to the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 or the existence of another virus that will cause ‘pandemic two’. The journal article used the terms SARS-Cov2 and SARS-CoV3 to identify gene fragments of SARS-CoV1, the virus that causes SARS. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was first recorded in 2019 and at the time of publication there is no virus called SARS-CoV-3.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.