system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
A team from the WHO is currently in China looking for the origins of SARS-CoV-2. How do you look for the source of a virus?
gpt
Take a close look at all the slight variations in way the RNA mutates over time (note: usually they make artificial DNA from the RNA because it's more stable). If two different cases share almost all the same mutations then they're probably closely related. when you look at the small differences between four or five you can begin track backwards which was the oldest in the banching tree of similarities and differences - and which are "cousins" and which have closer "parent/child" relationships.