"This impressive monograph by Edward Holmes opens with a quotation from La Peste, by Albert Camus: “Everyone knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky.” This apt quotation might lead the reader to believe that the evolution and emergence of RNA viruses in causing new diseases would be discussed, but in fact the book, as its title suggests, concentrates on how RNA viruses evolve and emerge at the molecular level, not how they cause disease.

"In addition to explaining what is currently known about the origins of RNA viruses, the book describes the mechanisms of RNA virus evolution, RNA virus quasispecies, and comparative genomics, as well as interesting new concepts, such as phylogeography. This term refers to the spatial movement of a phylogenetic species, which can be described in various ways (Holmes lists 5), two of which are the gravity model and the strong spatial subdivision model. In the former, patterns of transmission are driven by major population centers before moving out to smaller populations (influenza virus). In the spatial subdivision model, no clear evidence of migration among populations is presented (hepatitis C virus), and genomic diversity is partitioned into a series of clades (types and subtypes)" (from the review by Brian W.J. Mahy, Emerg. Infect. Dis., 16, p. 899.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Wu, Zhao...Holmes, Zang. This was the first paper written in China, and published in a Western language, on the first COVID-19 patient admitted to any Wuhan hospital on December 26, 2019. Nature received the paper on January 7, 2020, but did not publish it until February 3, 2020.

Abstract:

"Emerging infectious diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Zika virus disease, present a major threat to public health1,2,3. Despite intense research efforts, how, when and where new diseases appear are still a source of considerable uncertainty. A severe respiratory disease was recently reported in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. As of 25 January 2020, at least 1,975 cases had been reported since the first patient was hospitalized on 12 December 2019. Epidemiological investigations have suggested that the outbreak was associated with a seafood market in Wuhan. Here we study a single patient who was a worker at the market and who was admitted to the Central Hospital of Wuhan on 26 December 2019 while experiencing a severe respiratory syndrome that included fever, dizziness and a cough. Metagenomic RNA sequencing4 of a sample of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from the patient identified a new RNA virus strain from the family Coronaviridae, which is designated here ‘WH-Human 1’ coronavirus (and has also been referred to as ‘2019-nCoV’). Phylogenetic analysis of the complete viral genome (29,903 nucleotides) revealed that the virus was most closely related (89.1% nucleotide similarity) to a group of SARS-like coronaviruses (genus Betacoronavirus, subgenus Sarbecovirus) that had previously been found in bats in China5. This outbreak highlights the ongoing ability of viral spill-over from animals to cause severe disease in humans."

Open access from nature.com at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)