ACE2 and COVID-19: When the COVID-19 virus and other betacoronavirus genome sequences were compared, it was found that the novel coronavirus shows 96% similarity to the bat SARS-like coronavirus strain BatCovRaTG13 and that the spike (S) protein on the virus binds to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) on the cell surface.3,4,9,10,11