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The novel coronavirus, 2019-nCov (named as SARS-CoV-2 by ICTV Coronaviridae Study Group on February 12, 2020), causes severe respiratory illness 1 and has been spreading around the world rapidly. 2 As of February 14, 2020, there are over 64,000 confirmed cases with 1,384 deaths. This raises an urgent need for an effective treatment of the deadly disease. However, current antiviral drugs have limited effects on 2019-nCov (SARS-CoV-2). Although Gilead’s NUC (nucleoside) inhibitor, which previously failed to treat Ebola, seemed to benefit a 2019-nCov (SARS-CoV-2) patient in Washington, USA, it remains unknown whether the drug will be effective against the virus in other patients, who may have been infected by different variants of the virus. Our analysis of 2019-nCov (SARS-CoV-2) RNA genome from 19 patients in China, USA and Australia reveals that these viruses have differences in sequence …