Analysis approach. (a) k-mers for k ϵ {6, 7, 8} were extracted from the proteins of relevant human pathogens and compared to epitopes predicted in the SARS-CoV-2 proteins. The epitope prediction was by netMHCpan and netMHCIIpan. Pathogens were ranked based on exact k-mer hits to the epitopes. (b) Principle of edit distance determination of epitopes. The SARS-CoV-2 epitope MKFSDRPFMLH has a edit distance of 1 when compared to the putative pathogen epitope MKFSDRPFML_ because of the missing histidine at the C-terminus. The distance between MKFSDRPFMLH and MKFSDAPFMLHR is 2 because of the D6A exchange and the additional arginine at the C-terminus. The K2L, D5I, and F8S exchanges give rise to an edit distance of 3 between MKFSDRPFMLH and MLFSIRPSMLH.