Boston Uni researchers claim to have developed new, more lethal Covid strain

I disagree. That's why it's an arms race (against the virus or some [very crazy and suicidal] foreign adversary) and it's very important to do this type of research. Once you understand the problem you can design and implement a solution to mitigate or eradicate it. If no research is done then the impact can be devastating. The only thing I'd caution are the measures while the research is being done to avoid any kind of virus leaking to an wider and unprotected audience.