IT'S THE RACCOONS' FAULT
Recently, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) reported that the corona virus had escaped from the Wuhan lab. That's very annoying because the Wuhan lab was funded by those same Americans. Now, doesn't it work out well that a new study shows that the pandemic was caused by raccoons which were sold illegally in the Wuhan market ?
" A team of scientists from around the world announced on Thursday that they believe the virus, SARS-CoV-2, originated from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where the outbreak began.
The report comes amid a swirling debate over the origin of the pandemic, after a US Department of Energy report concluded with "low reliability" that it was the result of a laboratory leak.
According to the report, researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention uploaded new data from swab samples collected from the market in January 2020 -- including from floors, walls and cages containing animals -- to the open global genome sequencing database GISAID.
From there, the international team, consisting of virologists and biologists, downloaded and analyzed the samples.
The samples that came back positive for the virus also contained genetic material from several animals, particularly large amounts corresponding to the common raccoon dog.
"In samples with a large amount of virus, there was no trivial amount of DNA and RNA from raccoon dogs," Dr Jeremy Kamil, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Louisiana State University Health Shreveport, who was not involved in the study, told ABC News.
While this does not definitively prove that the virus definitely jumped from raccoon dogs to humans, the team said it is the strongest evidence so far for the natural transmission theory.
"This is really a strong indication that the animals on the market were infected," Dr Angela Rasmussen, one of the virologists involved in the new report, told The Atlantic. "There's really no other explanation that makes any sense."
Kamil agreed that while the evidence is not irrefutable, it raises serious questions about animal trafficking in these markets.
In a briefing Friday morning, the World Health Organization addressed reports of the possible link to raccoon dogs.
"Last Sunday, WHO was made aware of data that had been published in the GISAID database in late January and recently removed again," said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "The data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention refer to samples collected from the Huanan market in Wuhan in 2020. These data do not provide a definitive answer to the question of how the pandemic started, but every piece of data is important in bringing us closer to that answer."
Raccoon dogs are known to harbor other viruses that pass from animals to humans. For example, an October 2003 report found a virus very similar to SARS-CoV-1, a cousin of the new coronavirus, in a raccoon dog and in humans at a live animal market in Guangdong, China.
Although most experts now believe that the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak in China was bat-related,raccoon dogs are believed to have been accidental hosts of the virus for a short time.
Currently, four US agencies and the National Intelligence Council say the virus was the result of natural transmission from animals to humans.
Late last month, the Department of Energy changed its position from "inconclusive" to "low confidence" that the COVID-19 pandemic was "most likely" the result of a laboratory leak, making it the second agency, after the FBI, to believe that a laboratory accident led to the global health crisis.
China has cracked down on the illegal trade and sale of wild animals in markets across the country since the SARS outbreak in 2002. Kamil said that if the virus comes from wild animals, it draws attention to certain practices that are not enforced.
"If it is a spillover into the market, it indicates that the government is not enforcing its own laws and allowing illegal trade," he said.
Ok. Good. So it is the raccoon. And have they found Patient Zero yet ? Did he perhaps have a raccoon as a pet ? Or was raccoon on his menu ?
It's all well and good to say that raccoons are at the source but surely a direct link must be demonstrated, no ? Or isn't that necessary these days ?
No, with false flags, nothing matters.
Raccoon dogs may be responsible for the COVID pandemic, new report suggests (msn.com)