16 karma · joined May 16, 2020
Genera -- as in SARS-CoV-2's genus is Betacoronovirus -- don't have "strains."
Only families -- such as the SARSr-CoV family -- have strains.
While we're on the topic of linguistic pedantary, strain isn't exclusive to direct mutations from a parent genome. Strains, like much of biological taxonomy, are a human abstraction to make communication of the idea of -- in this case -- "a virus sharing similar properties to coronaviruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome" -- albeit this is a very simplified definition for the sake of brevity.
SARS is caused by SARS-CoV-1 and COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Rather, if we would like to be absolutely correct about these classifications, we would say SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 are both strains of SARSr-CoV (Severe accute respiratory syndrome related coronavirus), which in itself is a species, an abstract concept used to group related organisms into a convenient umbrella term.
There is no "eukaryote" organism the same way there is no "SARSr-CoV" organism. The added "r" was a recent addition when COVID-19 was discovered.
I will cede that I didn't specify this last point, and you were correct to point it out.
COVID-19: disease caused by SARS-CoV-2
SARS-CoV-2: strain of SARS-CoV
SARS-CoV: severe accute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
Coronavirus: virus that causes respiratory diseases in mammals, such as SARS (SARS-CoV) MERS (MERS-CoV), and COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2)