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Medicine Science

Boston University Researchers' Testing of Lab-Made Version of COVID-19 Draws Government Scrutiny 112

Posted by BeauHD from the looking-for-answers dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from STAT: Research at Boston University that involved testing a lab-made hybrid version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is garnering heated headlines alleging the scientists involved could have unleashed a new pathogen. There is no evidence the work, performed under biosecurity level 3 precautions in BU's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, was conducted improperly or unsafely. In fact, it was approved by an internal biosafety review committee and Boston's Public Health Commission, the university said Monday night. But it has become apparent that the research team did not clear the work with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was one of the funders of the project. The agency indicated it is going to be looking for some answers as to why it first learned of the work through media reports.

Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID's division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the BU team's original grant applications did not specify that the scientists wanted to do this precise work. Nor did the group make clear that it was doing experiments that might involve enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential in the progress reports it provided to NIAID. "I think we're going to have conversations over upcoming days," Erbelding told STAT in an interview. Asked if the research team should have informed NIAID of its intention to do the work, Erbelding said: "We wish that they would have, yes." The research has been posted online as a preprint (PDF), meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed. The senior author is Mohsan Saeed, from BU's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories. STAT reached out to Saeed on Monday but had not received a response by the time this article was published.

In the paper Saeed and colleagues reported on research they conducted that involved creating a hybrid or chimeric virus -- in which the spike protein of an Omicron version of SARS-2 was fused to a virus of the Wuhan strain, the original version that emerged from China in 2020. Omicron viruses first emerged in late 2021 and have since splintered into multiple different sub variants. The goal of the research was to determine if the mutations in the Omicron spike protein were responsible for this variant's increased ability to evade the immunity to SARS-2 that humans have built up, and whether the changes led to Omicron's lower rate of severity. The testing actually showed, though, that the chimeric virus was more lethal to a type of lab mice than Omicron itself, killing 80% of the mice infected. Importantly, the original Wuhan strain killed 100% of mice it was tested in. The conclusion of the study is that mutations in the spike protein of the Omicron variant are responsible for the strain's ability to evade immunity people have built up via vaccination, infections, or both, but they are not responsible for the apparent decrease in severity of the Omicron viruses. The university disputed the claims made by some media outlets that the work had created a more dangerous virus, saying: "In fact, this research made the virus [replication] less dangerous." They noted that other research groups have conducted similar work.

"That 80% kill rate, that headline doesn't tell the whole story," Erbelding said. "Because Wuhan" -- the original strain -- "killed all the mice." The fatality rate seen in this strain of mice when they were infected with these viruses raises questions about how good a model they are for what happens when people are infected with SARS-2. The Wuhan strain killed less than 1% of people who were infected.
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Boston University Researchers' Testing of Lab-Made Version of COVID-19 Draws Government Scrutiny More

Boston University Researchers' Testing of Lab-Made Version of COVID-19 Draws Government Scrutiny

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  • Oh noes! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The general populace doesn't care about covid anymore. Only biotech companies are still beating that dead horse. I hear a covid vaccine commercial on the radio about twice a week these days.

    So, when can we expect human trials to start?

  • I don't care what the scientific value of this research is, it's not worth the crazies freaking out over it.

    • Re:Oh Jesus Christ (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2022 @08:33PM (#62978503)
      The crazies will find SOMETHING to freak out about. It's what they do.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
        I suppose you're right. It's not that they're finding something to freak out about it's that right wing media gives them something to freak out about so they'll ignore the economy and let the corporations do whatever the hell they want

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          The right wing media want a fascist state, in the old sense of the word fascist where the economy is run via dual gov-industry partnership. That way they can make sure only right wing values like guns everywhere are upheld. Then when cops get blown away, they can bleat incessantly about rising crime thereby ensuring another round of guns for everyone. Rinse and repeat before every election....until they finally corrupt those as well.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by RemindMeLater ( 7146661 )
      Yes, heaven forbid we draw any lessons from the first lab-originated virus that killed 6+ million people.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      I don't care what the scientific value of this research is, it's not worth the crazies freaking out over it.

      Crazies are not worth freaking out over. Ignore them. We don't suspend air travel because of "chem trails" or shutdown mobile phone systems because "COVID is spread by 5G" either.

      Ignore them, or better still throw them rooms with pillows for walls to protect them from themselves, and let's get on with science.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • We suspended mask mandates and other commonsense measures to combat COVID-19 because the crazies basically made it impractical to enforce any of them.

          No we didn't. You simply didn't enforce them correctly. There were crazies the world over. They aren't uniquely American, yet in the entire world (and even in America) mask mandates stood firm and even when they didn't many non-crazies continued to wear them.

          Most states in the USA dropped the mask mandate sometime in May/June 2021. This is significant because at the time the case rate was at an almost 1 year low, on a strong downward trend, and incidentally the point where vaccinations in the USA past 50% c

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Soooo, you would also not have been for research that may have shown the world is not flat, after all? Just saying. The crazies freak out over _anything_ and everything.

  • The virus is less lethal because it kills only 80 percent of the mice, and not 100 percent?

    Most very reassuring Boston University. I think you need to leave the public statements to people better capable of making them.

    • It's even worse than that:

      >Original Wuhan strain tested on mice. Kills 100% of them.

      >Wildtype Omicron strain tested on mice. Kills 0% of them.

      >Scientists create a new strain

      >New strain kills 80% of mice

      How is this useful fucking science. Those people should be in jail for creating something that has the potential to be worse than Omicron if released.

      • Re:Ooohkay! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Scoth ( 879800 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2022 @09:24PM (#62978583)

        The intended usefulness is stated in several places linked from the summary. It's pretty straightforward. Omicron is more contagious and avoids vaccines due to the nature of its spike proteins, however it is also far less deadly with much milder symptoms. We don't really know why this is, and one hypothesis was that it was also related to the the way the spike proteins worked. So the idea was the take the omicron spike proteins and graft them onto the original virus. This still led to high deaths in mice (while less than the original, still far far more than Omicon) which means the mutated spike proteins aren't linked to the lower infectiousness of omicron and it's something else.

        You can debate the ethics of doing this at all, whether it's a good idea, should have had more oversights or approvals or whatnot (which are all valid questions), but there's a pretty simple explanation for what the intent and use was.

        • The intended usefulness is stated in several places linked from the summary. It's pretty straightforward. Omicron is more contagious and avoids vaccines due to the nature of its spike proteins, however it is also far less deadly with much milder symptoms. We don't really know why this is, and one hypothesis was that it was also related to the the way the spike proteins worked. So the idea was the take the omicron spike proteins and graft them onto the original virus. This still led to high deaths in mice (while less than the original, still far far more than Omicon) which means the mutated spike proteins aren't linked to the lower infectiousness of omicron and it's something else.

          You can debate the ethics of doing this at all, whether it's a good idea, should have had more oversights or approvals or whatnot (which are all valid questions), but there's a pretty simple explanation for what the intent and use was.

          Ethics aside, my point is the incredible tone deafness of the University, it's utterly stupid attempt at reassuring the public saying essentially that only 80 percent of the mice were killed by the new strain. Anyone with a functioning brain cell and hearong only that will assume that the new strain is only a little less lethal than the original.

          I suspect if going into hospital for an operation, your doctor saying "Years ago, 100 percent of people who were operated on for your condition died. But the rea

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

            >Ethics aside, my point is the incredible tone deafness of the University, it's utterly stupid attempt at reassuring the public saying essentially that only 80 percent of the mice were killed by the new strain.

            I don't think that's what they were trying to say at all. Mentioning that 80% of the mice were killed was the crux of the research, which was to find out if the lessening of severity of Omicron was due to the spike proteins or not. So I think they mentioned it in that context, not "look how much

            • >Ethics aside, my point is the incredible tone deafness of the University, it's utterly stupid attempt at reassuring the public saying essentially that only 80 percent of the mice were killed by the new strain.

              I don't think that's what they were trying to say at all. Mentioning that 80% of the mice were killed was the crux of the research, which was to find out if the lessening of severity of Omicron was due to the spike proteins or not. So I think they mentioned it in that context, not "look how much less deadly this is".

              That is exactly the tone deaf part. It is like when Hillary Clinton said "Women are the real victims of war". Did she mean that all the men who are killed, tortured and held prisoners aren't victims? Probably not - but it is akin to saying that men are not the real victims of war. and their troubles are not as important as women's, who are the real victims. Tone deaf.

              Words mean something, and tone deafness is the cousin of callousness. It certainly is honest, but shows a level of lack of understanding

        • "How well will this new chimeric virus kill mice?" is not a question worth answering, even if it has the potential shed light on why Omicron is less deadly than the Wuhan strain. Given that COVID-19 may have spread due to similar research (specifically, "why does this wildtype bat coronavirus kill bats more effectively now that we've modified it?) it seems utterly retarded for this study to even exist. Has humanity learned absolutely nothing? Do they think the original researchers at the WIV (Daszak, Zhengl

    • When you do these experiments in the lab, it doesnâ(TM)t translate to the wild lethality rate. For one thing the mice get a huge dose of the virus, which means the starting number of virus copies is very high .. and that in turn means the mouse has much less time to produce effective antibodies. If you start with 150 copies of the virus, that is about 7 replication cycles. The COVID virus needs around 5 to 7 hours to replicate from what I can tell. So 7 replication cycles is a lot, is a few days. When

      • When you do these experiments in the lab, it doesnâ(TM)t translate to the wild lethality rate. For one thing the mice get a huge dose of the virus, which means the starting number of virus copies is very high .. and that in turn means the mouse has much less time to produce effective antibodies. If you start with 150 copies of the virus, that is about 7 replication cycles. The COVID virus needs around 5 to 7 hours to replicate from what I can tell. So 7 replication cycles is a lot, is a few days. When you inoculate with 10,000 plaque forming units like they did in this study, the mouse has little chance. In the wild, the mouse isnâ(TM)t going to get hammered with 10,000 units.

        My point is not any scientific or medical issue. It's the utterly incompetent response on their part.

        It's that if you believe that telling people that the new strain is so weak that only 80n out of 100 tests result in fatality, instead of total fatality, you are 100 percent tone deaf. Not saying you, saying in general and them in specific

        My present position involves sometimes telling people to go to hell in the nicest way possible - and this 80 percent fatality that is trotted out like something wonder

        • And if their laboratory procedures are as incompetent as the public facing statements

          Given that they only were operating in a level 3 safety lab (instead of level 4), it is likely that they were incompetent.

          • And if their laboratory procedures are as incompetent as the public facing statements

            Given that they only were operating in a level 3 safety lab (instead of level 4), it is likely that they were incompetent.

            I agree. It is interesting that so many were quick to claim that Covid 19 was an escape from a Chinese laboratory, yet we are perhaps playing the same game.

            • I like to remember that if it escaped from a Chinese lab, it was funded by the US government. So blame is pointless, we just need to clean it up so it doesn't happen again.

  • Them damn scienticians is tryin ta kill us all!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      I thought Anthony "Fuck Face" Fauci went on record saying they didn't manipulate viruses in a way to make them more deadly to humans.

  • In consideration of the track record of the current vaccines to combat CV19, why try and study a more lethal gain of function strain? We know it can kill people who are vulnerable with co-morbidities. We now know the current vaccines don't protect against spreading it further and we know what protection we do get from them lasts for a limited time. These issues should be the priorities, not creating new variants.

    I find BU's claim "In fact, this research made the virus [replication] less dangerous." about as

    • Who said it was gain of function, they took the spike protein from a strain of the virus and replaced the spike protein from a slightly earlier strain. Two strains of the same virus to compare them.

      Unless you don't believe it because that's what THEY say, but everything you know about this so far is what they said they did, so why are you inserting make believe conspiracy theory bullshit?

      • They made the original virus more infectious.

        That's the big argument in definitions: does making a virus more infectious count as "gain of function?" Normally it would be relatively uninteresting, but whether or not many projects get funding depends on the precise definition.

      • Small question. Did the created variant gain function or not?

  • BSL-3? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2022 @08:40PM (#62978517)

    I think it should have been done under BSL-4. According to phe.gov, [phe.gov] "BSL-4 laboratories are used to study infectious agents or toxins that pose a high risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections and life-threatening disease for which no vaccines or therapies are available. The laboratories incorporate all BSL-3 features, as well as, additional safety features. Access to BSL-4 laboratories is carefully controlled and requires significant training."

    Given that existing vaccines might not be very effective against a lab-made strain of Covid, and given that such a new strain might mutate in ways previously not encountered, I don't think BSL-3 is sufficient.

    • But it's America, so lab leaks are impossible due to awesomeness.

    • Re:BSL-3? (Score:5, Informative)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2022 @04:21AM (#62979277)

      You can think all you want. From the very first moment SARS-COV-2 hit the scientific consensus was clear that a BSL-2/3 lab would have been sufficient for the study the virus, internationally is used for the study of this kind of infectious agent, and this was largely to point out the absurdity of the BSL-4 lab leak theory.

      Corona viruses have historically always been studied in BSL-3 or lower labs. In fact most research activities on SARS-COV-2 can be conducted in BSL-2 labs. There's specific guides available from the CDC and the EMA on exactly what level of research requires what level of containment. BSL-3 is only required for handling of large known active samples of the virus and activities which generate aerosols.

      Also you're confusing people's reaction to a virus and the virus itself. SARS-COV-2 is not "high risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections", not unless research into it turns it into an aerosol, and even then the risk is moderate. BSL levels consider what the virus is and what you do with it, they don't assume the people working on it have it and are sneezing it all over the lab.

      It is also not classified as a life-threatening disease. It is classified as causing life-threatening secondary infections. There's a very real difference and one which accounts for the millions of people who have had the disease and survived without needing so much as a trip to the doctor.

      This is not Ebola we're talking about. That kind of virus is life-threatening on its own and requires BSL-4 level containment for research.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        You can think all you want. From the very first moment SARS-COV-2 hit the scientific consensus was clear that a BSL-2/3 lab would have been sufficient for the study the virus, internationally is used for the study of this kind of infectious agent, and this was largely to point out the absurdity of the BSL-4 lab leak theory.

        Corona viruses have historically always been studied in BSL-3 or lower labs.

        Even if the research in question is, like in Wuhan, specifically aimed at making the disease more deadly?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

          >Even if the research in question is, like in Wuhan, specifically aimed at making the disease more deadly?

          No, the research in question was trying to answer the question of whether the reduced deadliness of Omicron was due to the change in spike proteins or something else. With this experiment, they determined it is mostly something else. So nice try.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nagora ( 177841 )

            >Even if the research in question is, like in Wuhan, specifically aimed at making the disease more deadly?

            No, the research in question was trying to answer the question of whether the reduced deadliness of Omicron was due to the change in spike proteins or something else. With this experiment, they determined it is mostly something else. So nice try.

            You're thinking of a different event. I mean the original research in Wuhan to enhance covid, back before the outbreak from the "wet market" which had nothing to do with the lab up the street, oh no. The very thought!

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

              Oh, so you subscribe to the theory that the virus escaped or was intentionally let loose from a lab?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by nagora ( 177841 )

                Oh, so you subscribe to the theory that the virus escaped or was intentionally let loose from a lab?

                I subscribe to the theory that it's a hell of a coincidence that has never been independently checked and of course never will be because China and the US are happier not knowing.

                But, certainly accidental if it was from the lab.

        • Even if the research in question is, like in Wuhan, specifically aimed at making the disease more deadly?

          If you simulate a more deadly strain on your PC do you lock it away in a lab?

          Don't use the word "research" when discussing BSL levels. Tell us what specific laboratory test and instruments you are using on exactly what specific samples of the virus in question. That determines the BSL level required.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nagora ( 177841 )

            Even if the research in question is, like in Wuhan, specifically aimed at making the disease more deadly?

            If you simulate a more deadly strain on your PC do you lock it away in a lab?

            If I was working on a theoretical new computer virus to test detection methods, you can bet I would be doing it on an isolated PC.

      • Re:BSL-3? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2022 @11:14AM (#62980185)

        You can think all you want. From the very first moment SARS-COV-2 hit the scientific consensus was clear that a BSL-2/3 lab would have been sufficient for the study the virus, internationally is used for the study of this kind of infectious agent, and this was largely to point out the absurdity of the BSL-4 lab leak theory.

        SARS escaped from a Taiwanese BSL-4 lab in 2003.
        https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/new... [umn.edu]

        Ebola also escaped from BSL-4 labs.

        China was kicking ass and taking names with chimeric coronaviruses that infect humans before the BSL-4 lab even came online. And who doesn't love hits like "Isolation and characterization
        of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor" and "Pathogenicity of
        two new bat SARS-related coronaviruses to transgenic mice expressing human ACE2."

        Regardless of BSL where any leaks may have occurred to assert it is absurd for it to have leaked from a BSL-4 lab is not credible given the history of such leaks having occurred in the last.

        • The claim didn't stand in a vacuum. The claim was based around the fact that there's two BSL-3 labs and a BSL-2 lab in Wuhan, two of which are closer to the wet market than the BSL-4, and one of which also dealt with Coronaviruses. The claim is a counter to the absurd FUD of "oooh BSL-4, dangerous, biohazard, must be source!!!!!" Additionally it stands along side a mountain of other evidence that for the lab in question to have been the source of the leak there had to have been some insanely strange coincid

  • Suggests that a highly lethal omicron is possible (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erice ( 13380 ) on Tuesday October 18, 2022 @08:56PM (#62978543) Homepage

    The current relaxing trend is based on the idea that Omicron is much less severe therefore we don't have to worry about the much higher infection rate. This study suggests that omicron could mutate into a form nearly as lethal as the original while retaining immune escape.

    However, the data is incomplete. The seriousness of the virus depends on three, not two qualities:
    1) Lethality
    2) immune escape
    3) transmissibility

    The data from this study only concerns the first two. But we know that transmissibility is a key factor in determining if a strain takes off. Beta, for example, had potent immune escape but never took off on a global scale because it was overtaken by more transmissible variants. We also have some data showing that Omicron's crazy high transmission rate and its lower severity are coupled. By embedding in the upper respiratory tract rather than down in the lungs, omicron has a freer path for transmission but an infection there is also less dangerous to the infected.

    • Beta, for example, had potent immune escape but never took off on a global scale because it was overtaken by more transmissible variants.
      This is just nonsense.
      A virus (variant) is not "dying out" because it is "over taken" by other virus (variants).

      It simply dies out because it runs into a dead end, aka can not infect enough people. Aka: r-value below 1. Has absolutely nothing to do with "other viruses" or other virus variants.

      • Re:Suggests that a highly lethal omicron is possib (Score:4, Insightful)

        by erice ( 13380 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2022 @02:47AM (#62979089) Homepage

        Beta, for example, had potent immune escape but never took off on a global scale because it was overtaken by more transmissible variants.
        This is just nonsense.
        A virus (variant) is not "dying out" because it is "over taken" by other virus (variants).

        It simply dies out because it runs into a dead end, aka can not infect enough people. Aka: r-value below 1. Has absolutely nothing to do with "other viruses" or other virus variants.

        What you say about r -value is true but it doesn't support your position. Variants absolutely do compete because if a more infectious variant gets to the host first, the resulting immune response impedes the first. If the viruses are unrelated like influenza and covid19 then they will not affect each other but this is the case with covid19 variants. They are similar enough to have substantial cross-immunity.

        • They are similar enough to have substantial cross-immunity.

          Right up until the moment they don't. Do recall that people can be sequentially infected with covid.

        • What you say about r -value is true but it doesn't support your position. Variants absolutely do compete because if a more infectious variant gets to the host first, the resulting immune response impedes the first. If the viruses are unrelated like influenza and covid19 then they will not affect each other but this is the case with covid19 variants. They are similar enough to have substantial cross-immunity.
          Nevertheless that does not help one virus to outcompete the other one.
          And that is the point of the pa

      • This is just nonsense.
        A virus (variant) is not "dying out" because it is "over taken" by other virus (variants).

        It simply dies out because it runs into a dead end, aka can not infect enough people. Aka: r-value below 1. Has absolutely nothing to do with "other viruses" or other virus variants.

        Throughout the pandemic the virtual disappearance of variants have been repeatedly correlated with the logistic rise of new ones. It is not credible to assume this has absolutely nothing to do with other variants.

        • It is not credible to assume this has absolutely nothing to do with other variants.
          Of course it is.

          How the funk would a new variant hamper an older one to spread? It can't. It is as simple as that.

          • Of course it is.
            How the funk would a new variant hamper an older one to spread? It can't. It is as simple as that.

            This is an illogical argument. Whether or not a reason for something is known to you or the world has no bearing on objective reality.

            https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]

            An obvious answer is Omicron infection reduces the pool of people susceptible to Delta infection that would otherwise be available to spread Delta by spreading Omicron instead. Omicron infections are known to provide acquired immunity to other variants and dual infection is known to be rare.

            • Omicron infections are known to provide acquired immunity to other variants and dual infection is known to be rare.
              That does not make one virus "outcompete" an other one.
              It is only a normal effect of spreading of viruses.

              There is nothing special happening genetically that deserves the term "out competing" or similar.

      • Given the cross-immunity between COV-2 strains that occurs lessening the severity if you had already been infected by one, that's not entirely true.

    • By embedding in the upper respiratory tract rather than down in the lungs, omicron has a freer path for transmission but an infection there is also less dangerous to the infected.

      I remember that bit of info from way back during the original SARS.

      Basically there were two kinds of respiratory infections:
      Upper respiratory: Easily transmissible but not that dangerous since it doesn't really bother the lungs.
      Lower respiratory: Not as transmissible (further from the mouth!) but more dangerous since it affects the lungs.

      When the original COVID came up I was wondering how it managed to be so transmissible AND dangerous... and of course it was an upper respiratory infection that moved down i

  • In line 159 of the preprint, it was stated clearly that the strain used was from Washington (USA-WA1/2020), not the Wuhan strain.

    When the report and summary even got this wrong, how far can one trust it?

    • Re:Washington strain (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wherrera ( 235520 ) on Wednesday October 19, 2022 @03:04AM (#62979119) Journal
      They are playing fast and loose with the name of the actual genotype, but it remains that the 2020 study paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov] clearly says that the Washington strain they used is very close to the "original" pandemic strain. This means it is more accurate to call it the Wuhan type, to distinguish it from one of the later variants detected after summer of 2020, which were labeled alpha (first sequenced from cases in the UK I believe in the second half of 2020), beta, detla, etc.
    • The NAID got it wrong too? Because that's who they quote down at the end of the summary.

      Could it be that the first strain detected in Washington was the original Wuhan strain as it took its first foothold in the US?

  • And could never have been done with Covid. Hm. Appears now that it's so run-of-the-mill even a level 3 lab can do it.
    • > And could never have been done with Covid. Hm. Appears now that it's so run-of-the-mill even a level 3 lab can do it.

      First Fauci denied it, then Ted Cruz quoted an official NIH/CDC website mentioning gain-of-function research. Then they changed the definition on the website. You can go back and see, see no gain-of-function research carried on here /s

  • Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. At least they're not being all cagey and ambiguous about what they're doing and why. The way *some* people were.

  • I have Covid since about 20 days.
    Seemed gone about 5 days ago, but it re-emerged.

    Basically everyone in my greater family here in Thailand is/was sick (mostly roughly for 14 days). At the moment I only have headaches, coughing in the morning only and every 3 or 4 hours a little bit of coughing.

    My stepson is coughing badly. My GF is recovered one of her sisters, too. The other one is still coughing badly. The husband of the recovered sister still has it.

    We have 4 cats, all 4 were sick, but had no real problems (looking at them running after each other and playing), however my wives sister had 7 cats, 3 died during that Covid phase.

    Of course we did not check if the cats had Covid or not, but considering the circumstances it is obviously the most likely explanation.

    Interesting: the cats looked more sick than ours at one evening, but not serious, and simply died over night. A few days later, without first showing symptoms, the third cat died.

    • Following your family relations was more involved from that post than I expected.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Following your family relations was more involved from that post than I expected.

        If he's Thai, that's the abridged version.

        • I'm German. My GF is Thai, two of her sisters and their relatives live on the same property, we have 4 houses here.

  • ...they rival the black plague. 2/3rds of Europe died. Imagine 2 of every 3 people you know being gone. And most of human knowledge is not written down, it is in the brains of living people. Lose the people, lose the knowledge. Probably please the crazy environmentalists who will rejoice at the reduction of human pollution, but I don't know that I would want to survive that. I suppose I wouldn't have to worry since the flow of vital drugs I need, blood thinners mostly, would be disrupted. I'd li

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The Black Plague only has a mortality rate (untreated) of about 30%. Most of these people died as a result of the panic that ensued.

      • Nope. [pests.org] That mortality rate is for the general population [wikipedia.org], not the infected.

        Yersinia pestis (causal agent) created three types of infection; bubonic (50-75%), pneumonic (90-95%), and septicemic (almost 100%).
        • By the way, the septicemic variation usually killed the same day the symptoms showed and can't be treated even today.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Upps, seems I need to update my knowledge there. So what actually happened is that a lot of people did not die from a Black Plague infection but from running, _but_ that infection would have been highly deadly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        The Black Plague only has a mortality rate (untreated) of about 30%. Most of these people died as a result of the panic that ensued.

        And the main killer of those that were infected were the poor treatment (or no treatment). Bubonic plague still exists, but has very few fatalities occur as modern therapies and procedures, let alone modern anti-biotics make it entirely survivable even though the only outbreaks tend to be in extremely poor nations. Bubonic plague didn't disappear after the middle ages, the worlds sailing navies had procedures to quarantine and treat those even suspected of being infected (which often was first to quarantine

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          However the aforementioned nutters refused to believe it saying they'd had enough of "experts".

          Yep. Absolute morons blaming the messenger for reality. The human race has a ton of people that believe ignoring facts makes them go away. Never works, of course, but these are the same people that are unable to learn from experience and that are arrogant enough to think their understanding is on the same level as that of the experts. Dunning-Kruger effect at work.

          Anyways, just got my 2nd Covid booster and getting a flu shot in 2 weeks or so. Modern medicine is amazing compared to what you get without it. S

    • ...they rival the black plague. 2/3rds of Europe died. Imagine 2 of every 3 people you know being gone. And most of human knowledge is not written down, it is in the brains of living people. Lose the people, lose the knowledge. Probably please the crazy environmentalists who will rejoice at the reduction of human pollution, but I don't know that I would want to survive that. I suppose I wouldn't have to worry since the flow of vital drugs I need, blood thinners mostly, would be disrupted. I'd likely last a few months whether I survived the disease or not.

      These bozos need to quit screwing around with nuclear-holocaust-level pathogens.

      They certainly should have clearly communicated their intent to the government, and probably used BSL-4 instead of 3, but otherwise I think this is good research.

      The spike protein from Omicron fusing with the original Wuhan strain is definitely a thing that might happen. If it does, having a bit of a head start on understanding it is worthwhile.

      Similarly, the fact that the changed spike protein doesn't seem to be primarily responsible for the reduced lethality is important as it gives us more understanding

  • Very cool (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    scientific progress is always exciting. Can't wait to try it out when it's released!

  • What could possibly go wrong?!? n2ch
  • He's a righteous man
  • Don't worry, it's the Fringe team just doing their thing :-)
  • Canâ(TM)t wait for the new pandemic originating in a market near Boston university.

  • Dr Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the Boston team did not clear the work with the agency.

    She claims she only found out the experiments might have involved enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential after reading reports in the media on Monday.

    Dr Erbelding admitted feeling uneasy about the type of research the grants had been used to fund — given the lingering questions about the role of virus manipulation studies and the origins of Cov

  • Biosecurity protocols are regularly breached.

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