Submitted by izumi3682 t3_y6zw1j in Futurology
Reply to comment by bjb406 in Boston University researchers claim to have developed new, more lethal COVID strain in lab - Researchers at Boston University added a spike protein from the Omicron variant with the original Wuhan strain, which has an 80% kill rate (in certain mice) by izumi3682
Appreciate the additional source, but they objectively created the most contagious and deadly strain of Covid by chimerically combining a strain that was highly contagious with another one that had a high death rate. We already know that Covid strains could mutate to become be even worse than what we’ve seen, so this experiment does nothing except risk another pandemic and millions of deaths. It should never have been done and shouldn’t be defended.
Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should
Ahh a fellow Chaos theorist lol
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Gain of function is not limited to lethality. It could have killed 20% fewer mice but spread 300% more efficiently, as omicron did.The article doesn't mention if they gaged the spread.
Interesting. Thanks for explaining. Still seems to fall way short of creating “the most contagious and deadly strain of covid” as suggested above, but I do appreciate that explanation.
You overlooked the fact that they did made the Omicron strain more deadly. Omicron is MUCH more contagious than the original strain, but also less deadly. By combining super contagious Omicron strain with the deadly original strain, the combined chimeric strain has the worst of both worlds: high contagion and high mortality rate. It would potentially kill more people than any strain we have encountered so far.
Total deaths = Contagion rate * mortality rate * population (rough math)
The new strain would cause more deaths than either of the original strains would have caused. We benefit nothing by creating the worst possible strain of Covid in a lab, and risk everything.
Ah, and the spike protein is what causes the increase in contagiousness. Gotcha. Thank you.
Apart from the fact that the article itself says that it has a lower mortality rate than the original one and that those data refer to mices (which makes all the possible difference), as it's obviously not possible nor sensi Al to experiment on humans. Bio and pharm fields require experiments like this one all the time, which can be counterintuitive for people from outside. I'm not really following this exact case, as I don't have time to properly read the paper, but it's likely been done because this will help knowing better some cellular mechanisms, or could be used to develop better vaccines / antivirals... You can be safe knowing that it's a common practice and people who work on that knows how to handle samples. The founds are low enough to not waste them on something unless it's undeniably useful
No, no they did not “objectively [create] the most contagious and deadly strain of COVID ….” The strain they created had an 80% kill rate in mice while the original had a 100%. This was done in a level 3 lab, has already been done in other labs, and was performed to help determine why Omicron is evading vaccines. Adding the original spike back in proved that the change in the spike protein is not what is making Omicron and it’s variants more effective at evading immune response among the vaccinated (as was originally posited). This experiment allows vaccine developers to reformulate their bivalent vaccine in a way that is more effective at protecting against the Omicron variants. Your fearmongering and hyperbole do not help with anything.
“When mice were infected with just the original, ancestral virus strain, 100% of the mice died.” Yet when infected with this new strain, only 80% of them died. This strain is less deadly than the original.
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