the culturing work had established that an unknown coronavirus was present in SARS patients—some of them, anyway—but that didn’t necessarily mean it had caused the disease. To establish causality, Peiris’s team tested blood serum from SARS patients (because it would contain antibodies) against the newfound virus in culture. This was like splashing holy water at a witch. The antibodies recognized the virus and reacted strongly. Less than a month later, based on that evidence plus other confirming tests, Malik Peiris and his colleagues published a paper cautiously announcing this new coronavirus
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Just the presence of the virus doesn't prove causality
