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After international scientists discovered a potential link between the origin of the covid-19 virus and raccoon dogs, medical experts in Western Pennsylvania said the animal could be where the virus began.

Samples collected from the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China — where the first human cases of covid-19 were found in late 2019 — contained genetic material from raccoon dogs, indicating the fox-like animals may have been infected with the virus.

Raccoon dogs were linked to the first SARS outbreak in 2003, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“That put it on a list of animals that were susceptible to covid-related viruses,” he said, adding that they were known to have been sold at the Huanan seafood market, which is linked to the start of the pandemic…

Vaughn Cooper, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics and director for the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine at the UPMC School of Medicine, said he’s fairly convinced of the theory that the virus originated in an animal like the raccoon dog and spread to people.

The new evidence that shows the DNA of the raccoon dogs mixed with the RNA of the covid-19 virus is “quite strong,” he said.

Science marches on alongside intellectual honesty. Facts certainly appear to match opinions based on recent science. No doubt leading to confirmation of something like that propounded in this article.

No worry, though. The penny-ante pundits in the Republican Party will soon enough find some new thread to convince the dull-witted and bigoted that ignorance must rule.