Many coronavirus strains have already been discovered, but new strains regularly emerge due to mutations. The particular coronavirus responsible for the outbreak originating in Wuhan, China, provisionally named 2019-nCoV, is a new strain that was identified by scientists after sequencing its genome.
The 15% fatality rate from coronavirus (2019-nCoV) applied only to the initial cluster of 41 patients with confirmed infection and severe symptoms, as reported in The Lancet. Coronavirus infections can also produce mild symptoms, which likely went undetected. The mortality rate based on a group of more than 800 patients with laboratory-confirmed infection suggests that the fatality rate is closer to 3%.
The coronavirus patent referred to in the post is for the SARS coronavirus, not the Wuhan coronavirus. In the case of both viruses, initial cases were detected in China and evidence points to an animal reservoir as the source of infection; neither viruses were created in the lab.
