Social Media Claims Misrepresent Boston U. Study of What Causes Severity of COVID-19 Strains
SciCheck Digest
To study the role of the spike protein in the severity of COVID-19 illnesses, researchers exposed 10 mice prone to develop severe disease to a hybrid version of the virus. Eight mice died. Social media posts say researchers created a dangerous new variant with an “80 PERCENT Kill Rate,” potentially leaving the false impression that this pertains to humans. Also, the hybrid virus used in the study had a lower mortality rate than the original virus had on mice.
Full Story
Seeing that the omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 typically results in less severe disease than earlier strains, researchers at Boston University wanted to find out what part of the virus determines the severity of illness in order to improve treatment options.
They conducted a study that combined the spike protein from the omicron variant with the genome of the strain that circulated in Washington state in early 2020. The hybrid virus killed 80% of the mice used in the experiment. Researchers compared that with the effect of the unaltered Washington strain on another set of
