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Learn to live with mutating coronavirus, top Chinese virologist says
- Shi Zhengli adds her voice to vaccination calls, saying new variants will continue to emerge
- Virus does not have unlimited potential to mutate, researcher says
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Top Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli has renewed calls for the public to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, saying the pathogen will continue to mutate and the world must prepare to coexist with it.
In a report on Wednesday by Health Times, under state-run People’s Daily, Shi called on the public to not hesitate to get vaccinated.
“As the number of infected cases has just become too big, this allowed the novel coronavirus more opportunities to mutate and select. New variants will continue to emerge,” Shi said.
Head of the centre for emerging infectious diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi has become the subject of intense speculation including a conspiracy theory that the Covid-19 may have escaped from a Chinese lab.
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Also known as “bat woman”, Shi’s research focuses on the origin of novel coronaviruses. She published a paper last year that the Chinese horseshoe bat was the natural host for Sars-related coronaviruses.
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