this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
57 points (98.3% liked)

World News

23100 readers
49 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.


Guidelines for submissions:

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.


For US News, see the US News community.


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/8224710

China has reportedly embarked on a controversial path of experimenting with a new Covid-like virus, characterized by a 100% fatality rate in mice. The unfolding scenario raises concerns about the potential risks associated with such experiments, especially the prospect of the virus spilling over into the human population.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

Yes but ultimately covid 19 had a relatively low fatality rate. It's still high compared to things like cold and flu, but low compared to many other diseases. Before the vaccines, young people generally didn't die, it primarily affected the old and vulnerable.

While it absolutely is a concern - in particular that China is developing these things with apparent malicious intent - there is likely going to be some sort of engineering trade off between fatality and transmitability.