{"id":3827,"date":"2022-10-18T22:54:41","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T22:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/?p=3827"},"modified":"2022-10-26T16:54:12","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T16:54:12","slug":"boston-university-researchers-develop-covid-strain-with-80-percent-kill-rate-in-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/?p=3827","title":{"rendered":"BOSTON UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS DEVELOP COVID STRAIN WITH 80 PERCENT KILL RATE IN MICE"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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PESTILENCES<\/div>\n
\"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and\n\n
pestilences STONG\u2019S NUMBER: 3061 <\/font>loimos, loy\u00b4-mos; of uncertain affinity; a plague (literally, the disease, or figuratively, a pest):\u2014pestilence(-t)<\/span><\/div> and earthquakes, in divers places.\"\n\n \u2014 Matthew 24:7<\/blockquote><\/strong><\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Article Source: The Epoch Times<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n

University fires back, says some reports on the study are inaccurate.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n

Researchers with\u00a0Boston University\u00a0have developed a strain of\u00a0COVID-19\u00a0that killed 80 percent of mice infected with it, according to a preprint study released last week, prompting concern and condemnation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The team of researchers extracted the Omicron variant\u2019s spike protein, which they noted has \u201can unusually large number of mutations.\u201d The researchers then attached Omicron\u2019s spike protein, which is a structure that allows a virus to bind and invade human cells, to the original COVID-19 variant and dubbed it \u201cOmicron S.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIn K18-hACE2 mice, while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection,\u201d they wrote (pdf<\/a>), \u201cthe Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80 percent. This indicates that while the vaccine escape of Omicron is defined by mutations in S, major determinants of viral pathogenicity reside outside of [Omicron] S.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe generated chimeric recombinant SARS-CoV-2 encoding the S gene of Omicron in the backbone of an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 isolate and compared this virus with the naturally circulating Omicron variant,\u201d the researchers wrote. \u201cThe Omicron S-bearing virus robustly escapes vaccine-induced humoral immunity, mainly due to mutations in the receptor binding motif (RBM), yet unlike naturally occurring Omicron, efficiently replicates in cell lines and primary-like distal lung cells.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The researchers noted, however, that mice and human immune systems differ greatly. As a result, if the Omicron-S hybrid were to infect humans, it would be unlikely to be as deadly, they noted, adding\u00a0that the breed of mice that was used is more dissimilar to humans than other breeds subjected to laboratory testing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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However, when they infected human cells with the Omicron-S variant, they found that it was five times more infectious than the Omicron strain of COVID-19.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2018False and Inaccurate\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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A statement issued by Boston University on Tuesday said that \u201cthis research is not gain-of-function research, meaning it did not amplify the Washington state SARS-COV-2 virus strain (original virus from 2020) or make it more dangerous,\u201d\u00a0adding\u00a0that some online reports Monday are \u201cfalse and inaccurate.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIn fact, this research made the virus replicate less dangerous,\u201d the university stated.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe animal model that was used was a particular type of mouse that is highly susceptible, and 80 to 100 percent of the infected mice succumb to disease from the original strain, the so-called Washington strain,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cWhereas Omicron causes a very mild disease in these animals.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The 80 percent number was \u201ctaken out of context for the purposes of sensationalism and it totally misrepresents not only the findings, but [also] the purpose of the study,\u201d the statement said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Nonetheless, the study\u2019s publication\u00a0drew\u00a0online condemnation and concern.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Dr. Paul Hunter, an expert in infectious diseases at England\u2019s University of East Anglia, told the Daily Mail on Oct. 17 that he was concerned about what laboratories are capable of producing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe issue is what you\u2019re going to be using [the labs] for. If they\u2019re for diagnostic purposes, then you need them. But I don\u2019t think every country needs a BSL-4,\u201d Hunter said, referring to the top level of biosecurity used in laboratories.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIf they start having a dual purpose for research that has offensive military implications, that is the concern,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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And\u00a0Justin Goodman, the senior vice president of the\u00a0White Coat Waste Project advocacy group, told The Epoch Times that \u201cmad scientists need to be stopped before they cause another pandemic by recklessly supercharging deadly viruses in wasteful taxpayer-funded animal experiments\u201d and called on researchers to \u201cstop the madness.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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There has been widespread speculation that scientists at a laboratory in Wuhan, China, may have contributed to the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan. Although Chinese Communist Party officials have officially blamed the emergence of the virus on a wet market in the Chinese city, some U.S. intelligence officials in 2021\u00a0said\u00a0they believe COVID-19 either was created inside the lab or had escaped from the facility.<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

A researcher works inside a laboratory during the development of a vaccine in a file photo. (Reithera\/Handout via Reuters)<\/font><\/strong><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pestilences","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3827"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3859,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3827\/revisions\/3859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthedays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}