The hybrid virus, made by combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain, killed 80 percent of mice in a study.
Researchers at Boston University claim to have developed a new Covid strain that has an 80 percent kill rate following a set of similar experiments first believed to have started the pandemic after its outbreak in China in 2019. The hybrid virus, made by combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain, killed 80 percent of mice in a study.
When mice were infected with just the original, ancestral virus strain, 100 percent of the mice died. Despite concerns that similar practices and experiments may have sparked the pandemic, the revelation exposes how dangerous virus manipulation research continues to be conducted even in the United States.
A group of researchers from Florida and Boston carried out the study at the university’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories. The strain that was initially discovered at the start of the pandemic, which started in Wuhan, China, was first attached with the spike protein that was taken from Omicron. The mice’s responses to the hybrid strain were then recorded.
They found that all mice infected with only the BA.1 omicron variant had mild cases and survived. However, the combined omicron spike protein with the original Covid-19 virus strain developed severe disease with an 80 percent mortality rate.
