It seems that we haven’t learned enough lessons…in the latest development, scientists at Boston University have been “playing with fire” and claimed to have created a new COVID-19 strain with an 80% death rate.
Following a series of similar experiments that were initially believed to have caused the worldwide pandemic which started in China, a group of researchers from Florida and Boston carried out the research at the university’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, Fox News reported.
To develop the most lethal Covid strain, the researchers, according to a report, extracted the spike protein from Omicron and genetically engineered it into the strain of Covid-19 which was first detected in China’s Wuhan, and tried it on mice.
The researchers said in their research paper: “In…mice, while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80 percent.”
While 80 percent of mice died from the new man-made Covid strain, none faced a similar fate from a milder Omicron variant, the researchers found.
According to experts, the new variant has five times more contagious virus particles than the Omicron strain.
Coronavirus was first thought to have originated from a wet market in Wuhan, however, many people think that the virus was created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The World Health Organization is still under fire for how it handled the crisis in its first, most crucial stages.
In the meantime, scientists from Boston University have been criticized for “playing with fire” when it was revealed they had developed a deadly new strain of COVID-19 in a lab.
According to the DailyMail report, the leading Israeli government scientist, Professor Shmuel Shapira asserted, “This should be totally forbidden, it’s playing with fire.”
Furthermore, the gain of function research, in which viruses are intentionally altered to be more contagious or lethal, is regarded to be the root cause of COVID. A similar investigation into bat coronaviruses was conducted in a Chinese laboratory that was within a few kilometers from the initial cluster of cases, DailyMail reported.
Dr. Ebright told DailyMail.com:
“The research is a clear example of gain of function research of concern and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen (ePPP) research. It is especially concerning that this new US-government ePPP research – like the previous US-government ePPP research on chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses at Wuhan Institute of Virology that may have caused the pandemic – appears not to have undergone the prior risk-benefit review mandated under US-government policies.”
But since 2017, the US has significantly limited such practice.
Even among people who have had all prescribed vaccinations, the Omicron strain is very contagious. Researchers have shown that the spike protein controls the virus’s infectivity rates, while other structural modifications to the virus influence its timeliness.
In addition to this, the breed of mice utilized in the study was one of its limitations because other breeds are more similar to humans, Fox News reported.
Sources: AWM, DailyMail, FoxNews