Much like The Simpsons, the legendary adult cartoon South Park has been pretty spot on with its tongue-in-cheek predictions for the future. In their first episode of season 24, “The Pandemic Special,” they took on the COVID virus and the circumstances surrounding the virus and its spread. Airing on September 30th, 2020, it focused on Randy Marsh’s visit to China and a sexual interaction he and Mickey Mouse had with a pangolin (a scaly anteater).
Now reports are coming out of China that a mutated coronavirus strain is showing to be 100% fatal in mice. Originating from a COVID-like strain found in pangolins called GX_P2V, researchers infected “humanized” mice with the strain and watched them all die. Engineered to express a protein much like humans do, these mice all died within eight days of infection. For the scientists studying the effects, they were incredibly surprised to see the disease prove to be so fatal so quickly.
Attacking the brain and the eyes, the virus produced an immense viral load, and while related to COVID, spread in its own and much more deadly manner. In an unpublished but highly leaked report, the researchers express concerns about the virus being leaked and crossing paths with humans in the open. Unsurprisingly, the news of the testing spread through the scientific community, with many questioning the motives of testing a random virus on humanized mice.
Professor Richard Ebright, a chemist at Rutgers University, spoke with the Daily Mail about the study, and he, like others, sees the dangers in this testing.
“’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 such stuff might go wrong. The preprint does not specify the biosafety level and biosafety precautions used for the research. The absence of this information raises the concerning possibility that part or all of this research, like the research in Wuhan in 2016-2019 that likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic, recklessly was performed without the minimal biosafety containment and practices essential for research with a potential pandemic pathogens.”
What is most concerning about this study is the lack of information about when it was conducted, as well as what samples specifically were used. Given the number of known pangolin strains that were retained, researchers were believed to be looking for a connection point for the virus between bats and humans. Coated in scales and incredibly adaptable at flourishing in various environments, it had a unique system that allowed disease to cross over.
Storing these early mutations may have given the virus improved capabilities to be transmitted across species as well as attack new areas of the body. It also provides a more “pure” starting block for these unscrupulous researchers to conduct their research with a wider variety of changes.
In the dead mice, three major symptoms were identified. With eyes turning completely white, rapidly losing weight, and intense fatigue were the major consequences of this new strain. Within a timeframe between days seven and eight, all the tested mice were dead. Inside their corpses, researchers found a major presence of the virus inside the brains, lungs, noses, eyes, and windpipes of the subjects.
Lung symptoms were incredibly obvious by day six, and their brains had shrunk an incredible amount, with the virus surviving in the brain tissue with little to no difficulties. According to the researchers, “Severe brain infection during the later stages of infection may be the key cause of death in these mice…This is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100 percent mortality in hACE2 mice, suggesting a risk for GX_P2V to spill over into humans.”
If South Park got this right, we are in rough shape. American researchers and disease experts should get ready for the ever-increasing likelihood that when China attacks the US, they’ll use chemical or biological weapons on the mainland.
