Of the coronaviruses that are known to infect humans, human coronavirus (hCoV) 229E and NL63 are alphacoronaviruses and OC43, HKU1, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS‐CoV), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS‐CoV) and SARS‐CoV‐2 are betacoronaviruses. All coronaviruses are termed ‘enveloped’ viruses due to the lipid membrane that surrounds their capsid (protein), which in turn contains RNA (genetic material). Proteins protrude from their lipid envelope (Figure 1) and these can be imaged with electron microscopy as a corona surrounding the virus – hence their name. Coronaviruses contain four major structural proteins, the spike, nucleocapsid, membrane, and envelope proteins. The nucleocapsid, membrane and envelope proteins are mainly involved in forming and structuring the virus, whereas the spike protein is also involved in binding to host cells. 3