Research finds Covid variant with 100% mortality in ACE2-transgenic mice

biorxiv.org

33 points·ren_engineer··8 comments

should be noted this research was done at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology, which means researchers were messing around with this virus in a non BSL-4 lab. Pretty much every expert opinion I've seen online says this research is insane and provides no value for the risk involved

China's really excited to get the next pandemic going already; that'll fix their economy for sure!

Risks of this virus getting out aside, it would be invaluable to study and understand how a 100% lethal variant works. Even just knowing there exists a 100% lethal variant let's us be prepared in case one shows up from random mutations.

Wouldn't there be a natural tradeoff between how contagious it is and how deadly it is, though??

A virus that quickly kills all the hosts would probably not spread very far.

I feel like if there could exist one in nature, no species would last very long.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/01/18/chinese-mutant-covid-... Snopes: they didn't mutate the virus it mutated on its own in cell culture. And its 100% lethal based on 4 out of 12 mice, the same 4 of which were "humanazed ACE2 mice".

We have arms control and embargoes to prevent Iran from gaining fissile material but we don't give a fuck when nations that have proven themselves capable of regulating their biomedical research safety pursue reckless gain of function research. Makes total sense.

If it were a weaker country? You can imagine the response might be different?

How would you defend against such a variant without access to the sequence?

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