$10 Billion Deal, page-12426

The interesting part about this latest news out of China is that this isn't a "variant" of Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) but is in fact a variant of GX_P2V-2017 which has been mutated in the lab to produce these results reported.

Why is this interesting? Because as the name suggests, this particular virus was first discovered and isolated in 2017 in Malaysia, two years before Covid-19. Although GX_P2V-2017 and SARS-CoV-2 are closely related, the actual origins of SARS-Cov-2 are still widely debated however I find it interesting that the first known cases of Covid were located within a short distance from the labs now known to have been conducting game of function experiments in a known related virus to produce more devastating variants such as the one recently reported.

More interesting is that this study suggests that this variant has evolved to cause more devastating impacts through new means. Whereas SARS-CoV-2 caused massive respiratory distress, this variant of GX_P2V-2017 seems to have developed the additional ability to cause massive brain infection which appears to be the cause of death.

Whilst we can't be sure how this would translate to human infection, it does raise the concern that infection could lead to permanent damage to the brain. Whilst Covid-19 can cause long term lung damage, GX_P2V-2017 may potentially cause both lung and brain damage in acute cases. Far more devastating.

More importantly most drugs don't cross the blood / brain barrier so there are questions as to how we could treat the symptoms with existing drugs. Obviously BIT225 has the benefit where it is proven to cross the blood brain barrier but before we get all excited, this isn't a wild virus and if it even did make it into the wild the world would be in deep, deep doo doo so lets not start get excited about this and treat it just as interesting info.