Chinese Lab Creates Mutant Covid Strain With 100% Kill Rate

Chinese scientists created a mutant strain of COVID-19 that has a 100% kill rate when tested on “humanized” mice. The virus, GX_P2V, had devastating effects on mice that were engineered to reflect a genetic makeup similar to humans, per a Beijing study. The mutated strain is a version of GX/2017, a cousin of the coronavirus reportedly discovered in Malaysian pangolins in 2017. All mice infected died within eight days after GX_P2V impacted the lungs, bones, eyes, tracheas and brain of their host.

This study is the first to report a 100% kill rate by a COVID-19-related virus, but researchers said the results don’t indicate its possible effect on people. "I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanized mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how much stuff might go wrong," said Francois Balloux, epidemiology expert at University College London. Balloux said, “The absence of biosafety levels & precautions, like the research in Wuhan in 2016-19 that likely caused the pandemic, was reckless." US intelligence agencies found no evidence to support this claim and the 2024 study appears to have no ties to China’s Wuhan Institute. The purpose of the trials is to provide “a unique model for understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses."