The world has still not come out of the havoc created by COVID-19, and Chinese scientists are investigating one more dangerous COVID-19 variant named GX_P2V. This mutated strain has a 100% fatality rate in mice specially designed to have human-like genetics, resembling what occurred in Wuhan.
The research, emanating from Beijing last week, revealed that the deadly virus targeted the brains of mice designed to replicate human genetic makeup. Described as GX_P2V, this mutated virus traces its roots back to GX/2017, a coronavirus variant discovered in Malaysian pangolins in 2017, three years before the global pandemic.
The alarming study disclosed that all infected mice succumbed within an astonishingly rapid eight days. GX_P2V wreaked havoc on multiple organs, including the lungs, bones, eyes, tracheas, and brains, with the latter proving severe enough to be the primary cause of death. In the days leading to their demise, the mice exhibited dramatic weight loss, a hunched posture, and sluggish movement, culminating in completely white eyes a day before death.
While the study raises concerns, it marks the first instance reporting a 100% mortality rate in mice infected by a COVID-19 related virus, surpassing previous findings. However, the implications for human beings remain uncertain, as emphasized by epidemiology expert Francois Balloux, who criticized the research as "terrible" and "scientifically totally pointless."
Dr. Gennadi Glinsky, a retired professor of medicine at Stanford, voiced apprehensions, stating, "This madness must be stopped before too late." The study's lack of information on biosafety measures is a cause for concern, echoing worries about the potential mishandling of research similar to that in Wuhan from 2016-2019, believed by some to be linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Notably, the 2024 study does not seem to have any connections with China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was previously at the center of lab leak theories amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite US intelligence agencies finding no direct evidence of a lab leak, the origin of COVID-19 remains unclear.
