higher prevalence of blood type A among the patients with COVID‐19 than in the normal population. On the contrary, it seemed that individuals with O blood type were spared somehow, as there were fewer patients with this blood type in this study (both p < .001). A series of meta‐analyses on the available data indicated a significantly higher risk for COVID‐19 in people with blood type A, relative to individuals with non‐A blood types. However, an opposite scenario seemed to be true for the blood type O community, since, according to the literature, are less susceptible for contracting infectious diseases such as COVID‐19 (Zhao et al., 2020).

4  ETIOLOGY: SOURCES AND MODES OF TRANSMISSION
According to the literature, the pathogen and area of origin were similar in both SARS and COVID‐19 outbreaks. However, despite this similarity, the raised public awareness and extensive interventional procedures that might have once proved effective for SARS containment, have been rendered ineffective against the 2019 novel Coronavirus; as the disease is already more widespread than SARS (Liu, Gayle, Wilder‐Smith, & Rocklöv, 2020). A large family of viruses, CoVs are common among many different animal species, including cattle, civets, camels, and bats. However, these CoVs are not solely restricted to animal populations, as they can occasionally infect humans, bringing epidemics such as SARS, MERS, and in recent memory, COVID‐19 (Sahin et al., 2020). Recent investigations conducted on the origins of CoVs responsible for the past epidemics have reported bats as the primary reservoir for both SARS‐CoV and MERS‐CoV; suggesting that other animal species were involved in the process merely as intermediate hosts. Accordingly, the majority of bat‐associated CoVs belong to α‐CoV and β‐CoV genera, while almost all of the avian CoVs fall in the other two genera; γ‐CoVs and δ‐CoVs (Yin & Wunderink, 2018). It has been suggested that species responsible for the recent epidemic is reminiscent of the CoV isolated in bats. Trafficking of wild animals in Huanan Seafood Market, located in