Oh my. Who could have ever seen this coming. Who could have ever predicted that the Chinese weren’t being completely transparent with what they knew about COVID-19 and when they knew it. Apparently, the only ones left capable of being shocked, SHOCKED, are the brain trusts at the World Health Organization.

This all began earlier in the week when The Atlantic insisted that the missing zoonotic link had been found at the Wuhan market – it was the raccoon dogs!

BREAKING: Three years into the coronavirus pandemic, researchers have found genetic evidence that appears to link the outbreak’s origin to a wild animal, @KatherineJWu reports. https://t.co/R9PMdsheOf

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) March 16, 2023

Naturally, the idea that COVID-19 may have had a zoonotic origin instead of a lab leak sent all of the usual suspects into a tizzy – and the New York Times followed suit. After all, if there was just enough doubt that it wasn’t a lab leak, then all their favorite authoritarians like Dr. Fauci would be vindicated! Except…

https://t.co/cYdZCCM7p2 pic.twitter.com/wUSOpH3V9P

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 17, 2023

Yeah. And isn’t it just a massive coincidence that the wet market that certain groups would love to prove was at the center of it all, JUST HAPPENED TO BE in the same city where a virology lab was located??? Doesn’t matter – the media is rolling.

The bottom line is that the raccoon dog theory is just that – a theory. But here’s where the WHO gets involved. After all, they would love for the zoonotic origin to be true, as they have cozy ties to Communist China and would love an excuse to give them a pass on COVID-19. So, with the new raccoon dog theory and data floating around, the WHO was looking at the genetic code in the Chinese database. Until it “mysteriously” disappeared. And now the WHO is upset.

The World Health Organization rebuked Chinese officials on Friday for withholding research that may link Covid’s origin to wild animals, asking why the data had not been made available three years ago and why it is now missing.”

Before the Chinese data disappeared, an international team of virus experts downloaded and began analyzing the research, which appeared online in January. They say it supports the idea that the pandemic could have begun when illegally traded raccoon dogs infected humans at a Wuhan seafood market.”

But the gene sequences were removed from a scientific database once the experts offered to collaborate on the analysis with their Chinese counterparts.”

“These data could have — and should have — been shared three years ago,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general, said. The missing evidence now “needs to be shared with the international community immediately,” he said.”

Is… is Ghebreyesus actually surprised that the Chinese are being secretive and withholding evidence about COVID-19??? Just how gullible IS the head of the WHO??? Regardless of origin, China deliberately covered up the existence of the virus being out in the general public, punished doctors who dared speaking out, and did not admit that the virus was being spread person-to-person until it was far too late to contain it. And just days before China admitted that person-to-person transmission was happening, the WHO was denying that there was any evidence that the virus was transmitted that way. If the WHO, three years later, has the capacity to be surprised that China is covering up and deleting data, then they are run by a bunch of fools with no business telling the rest of us what to do.

But back to the story.

A French biologist discovered the genetic sequences in the database last week, and she and a team of colleagues began mining them for clues about the origins of the pandemic.”

That team has not yet released a paper outlining the findings. But the researchers delivered an analysis of the material to a W.H.O. advisory group studying Covid’s origins this week in a meeting that also included a presentation by Chinese researchers regarding the same data.”

Questions remain about how the samples were collected, what precisely they contained and why the evidence had disappeared. In light of the ambiguities, many scientists reacted cautiously, saying that it was difficult to assess the research without seeing a complete report.”

But why would China not want the wet market to be blamed, if it could be pinned down to a zoonotic origin? Simple – the Chinese Communist Party has long held that the virus came from outside China, and have long been floating theories that the United States Army was actually responsible for planting the virus in Wuhan. Any possible origin for COVID-19 in China, be it zoonotic or lab leak, is not going to be entertained by the Chinese Communist Party.

Chinese scientists had released a study in February 2022 looking at the market samples. Some scientists speculated that the Chinese researchers might have posted the data in January because they were required to make them available as part of a review of their study by a scientific journal.”

The Chinese study had suggested that samples that were positive for the virus had come from infected people, rather than from animals sold in the market. That fit with a narrative long promulgated by Chinese officials: that the virus sprang not only from outside the market, but also from outside the country altogether.”

But the Chinese report had left clues that viral material at the market had been jumbled together with genetic material from animals. And scientists said that the new analysis by the international team illustrated an even stronger link with animals.”

“Scientifically, it doesn’t prove that raccoon dogs were the source, but it sure smells like infected raccoon dogs were at the market,” said Jeremy Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport.”

He added, “It raises more questions about what the Chinese government really knows.”

Scientists cautioned that it was not clear that the genetic material from the virus and from raccoon dogs had been deposited at the same time.”

And Bingo was the raccoon dog’s name-o. We have zero idea of how or when these samples were collected, only that it was in “early 2020.” However, we know that the first cases of COVID-19 showed up in 2019, which is why the virus is called “Coronavirus disease 2019.” Swab samples in early 2020 at the Wuhan market? The virus was already off and running by that time.

The odds that we ever have a definitive answer for COVID-19’s origins, with a Communist Chinese government determined to blame someone else, and willing to erase data in order to preserve their narrative, is essentially nil. The best we can do is make educated guesses based on the data we do have. It doesn’t look like the raccoon dog is going to hunt, though those who really want to avoid any tough questions about lab leaks and gain of function research are sure to use this as their new favorite shield. And if the WHO is going to continue to exist, it really needs to be gutted, and the next director needs to not believe that China acts in good faith about… well, pretty much anything.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click