All the ways you can—and can’t—catch the coronavirus
You are unlikely to catch COVID-19 from a toilet seat or from your dog. (Pixabay/)Where exactly the virus that causes COVID-19 came from is still something of a mystery. Experts believe that it jumped from an animal to people in the market in Wuhan, China where the outbreak began. But the exact animal species (some suspect it originated in bats, spread to pangolins, and then to people) hasn’t been determined yet.Now that the virus has spread to humans, however, scientists are racing to identify all the other ways that people can—and cannot—catch it.The new virus, officially known as SARS-CoV-2, is a member of the coronavirus family, a group that includes the viruses that caused deadly outbreaks of SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), as well as far less dangerous viruses that cause the common cold. These closely related viruses—and some preliminary studies of people with COVID-19—can give...