Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-COVID-19) is a new strain of a relatively new human coronavirus. It is a positive single-stranded RNA virus. If you remember our episode on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, influenza is also an RNA virus. However, influenza is a negative single-stranded RNA virus, which is crucial to distinguish because there is this running assumption that the current outbreak is "just the flu." They are very different.

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