The virus responsible for the current outbreak was originally called novel corona virus, now renamed SARS-CoV-2, since it is related to the SARS virus that caused an epidemic in China in 2002-2003 (postulated at that time to have originated in civet cats and then jumped to humans , and the MERS corona virus-related to transmission from camels https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/summary.html.