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Mutant COVID-19 Strain With 100% Kill Rate Developed In China

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Rats And Mice In A Medical School Laboratory

(Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Kay Smythe News and Commentary Writer
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A pre-peer-reviewed study published in early January described how mice were exposed to a human-based “lethal infection” of COVID-19 with a 100% mortality rate.

The Beijing-based research paper was submitted to the scientific preprint site BioRXiv and published prior to peer review, but the data held within the pages is significant. Two SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronaviruses (GD/2019, GX/2017) were identified prior to the major COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019 through early 2020, according to the study’s authors.

The researchers then isolated pCoV-GD01 and GX_P2V, “mutant” strains, which were cultured in labs between 2017 and 2020. When the infectivity and pathogenicity of the isolates were tested, it was found to easily infect golden hamsters and mice. The first isolate pCoV-GD01 had a higher homology than COVID-19, whereas GX_P2V didn’t seem to cause any disease in the animals despite infection. (RELATED: REPORT: Strange New Virus With High Fatality Rate In China Has Infected 35 People)

But an early passaged GX_P2V isolate, named GX_P2v(short_3UTR) not only infected mice with extremely high viral loads into their lung and brain tissue, but eventually killed 100% of the mice within the study. Even those mice who were given an inoculation (i.e., vaccinated) succumbed to the disease.

Autopsy of the mice showed viral RNA in the brain, lung, turbinate, eye and trachea, killing all of the mice within eight days of infection. All of the mice’s eyes also went white the day before they died.

The authors argued this is the first report that COVID-19-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100% mortality rates in mice, suggesting a significant risk of the disease spilling over into humans.

But since the study is not peer-reviewed, there are huge questions about the efficacy of the results. “I had a look at the preprint. It’s a terrible study, scientifically totally pointless. I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanised mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how such stuff might go wrong …” University College London genetics director Francois Balloux wrote on Twitter. “The preprint does not specify the biosafety level and biosafety precautions used for the research.”

Balloux’s statements were reiterated by Rutgers University chemistry professor Richard H. Ebright, who wrote “concur” under the comment. (RELATED: France Warned The US In 2015 About The Wuhan Lab It Helped Build, Former COVID-19 Investigator Claims)

It appears the biggest concern is related to why scientists feel the need to develop these horrific diseases. “The absence of this information raises the concerning possibility that part or all of this research, like the research in Wuhan in 2016-2019 that likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic, recklessly was performed without the minimal biosafety containment and practices essential for research with potential pandemic pathogens,” Balloux concluded. And it’s pretty hard to argue with his stance.

China is already inching back toward lockdowns as mysterious viruses spread throughout the country. Most of these illnesses are being blamed on influenza strains and other respiratory diseases, but no single culprit has been identified to date.