[An illustration of coronavirus. Photo credit to Pixabay]

There is a rising concern regarding an ongoing experiment involving a mutant coronavirus with a 100% mortality rate in humanized mice, conducted by a group of Chinese lab researchers.

On January 17th, the New York Post released a provocative news article on the aforementioned experimental study.

The New York Post reported, “All the mice that were infected with the virus died within just eight days, which researchers noted as a ‘surprisingly’ rapid death rate.”

It has been reported that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in China, and recent findings suggest that coronavirus experiments were conducted in a research lab in Wuhan, China.

This has sparked anxiety and heated controversy in the online community due to the association of the recent research on the mutant virus with China.

According to the research paper released by China, the mutant virus— also known as GX-P2V— can be deadly to humans.

The infected mice lost significant weight after 5 to 6 days of infection, and their eyes turned white.

The humanized mice survived no longer than 8 days after being infected by GX-P2V.

A substantial amount of virus RNAs were found in the brains of the infected mice, suggesting that the virus targets the host’s brain, ultimately leading to the conclusion that this mutant virus can lead to death in infected mice without exceptions.

However, there are concerns about the credibility of this research paper.

The study has been published on ‘bioRxiv,’ a website where researchers can freely publish their papers without peer review from experts in the field of biology.

Academic journals take more than half a year to publish, however, on bioRxiv, the paper becomes accessible to the public immediately after the author decides to publish it.

In addition, numerous papers published on bioRxiv during the pandemic claimed to have discovered a vaccine for COVID-19, but nearly all of them were found to be fake.

Despite the lack of credibility of the preprint server, experts suggest that the results of the study might not be as surprising as they sound.

Coronavirus has a high probability of producing mutants in the cell culture process because of the virus’s noncomplex nature and its vulnerability to the outside environment.

Dr. Jung from the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology argues that a few other coronavirus experiments also produced results where all mice infected by the pre-existing virus died.

Still, the scientific community remains concerned.

The research paper lacks instructions for handling the virus, and the specifics of how and where the experiment was done remain undiscovered.

The vagueness of the paper raises doubts about whether the virus was safely eradicated after the experiment.

Improper management of the virus could pose a high risk of it being introduced to civilians.

It has only been a few months since countries declared an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

If the discovery of the fatal mutant virus is confirmed, it will be vital for the international community to come up with countermeasures to combat future diseases.