Since December 2019, an increasing number of pneumonia cases caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei, China, and subsequently, an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) swept the globe [1–4]. As of February 3, 2020, more than 23,214 suspected cases and 20,438 confirmed cases have been identified, and there has been over 425 deaths related to the illness. Moreover, the virus is still spreading at an alarming rate.
In this sudden epidemic, reverse transcr