There’s another installation in the COVID-19 origin story controversy. Yet some more previously unseen data has emerged and published in the journal Scientific Reports. According to Bloomberg, “A research paper that languished in publishing limbo for a year and a half contains meticulously collected data and photographic evidence supporting scientists’ initial hypothesis—that the outbreak stemmed from infected wild animals—which prevailed until speculation that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a nearby lab gained traction.” While the study clearly strengthens the case for the coronavirus making a jump from animal to human, rather than a lab leak, it raises a whole slew of new questions. The crux of the paper establishes clearly that illegal wild animals were sold at the Wuhan market for a long time prior to and up to the first cases of COVID-19. Yet, Chinese officials have vociferously denied that live animals were sold there and when the WHO mission inspected the market, they were repeatedly told that only frozen meat from domesticated animals were sold there. The paper establishes that those were falsehoods. So while not completely disproving the lab leak theory (but definitely knee-capping it), it establishes that Chinese authorities have not been completely forthcoming all along. Just not about the lab leak. Well done. https://bloom.bg/3gf4cd8

Florida continues to descend into a mask-wearing-induced meltdown. Per the Washington Post, “Florida education officials determined Tuesday that the Broward and Alachua county school districts violated state law by requiring students without medical exemptions to wear masks and voted unanimously to consider penalties. Penalties that could be imposed on the districts by the Florida Board of Education, appointed by the governor, would be the first since Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) threatened to withhold money from districts that require face coverings, saying parents should decide whether their children wear masks at school. Advancing the fight between DeSantis and school districts, the board decided that the school officials should be investigated and possibly punished, after Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran argued that the districts were not complying with the law.” So let me get this straight. Governor DeSantis is mandating not mandating face mask wearing because he doesn’t like mandates. Clever. https://bit.ly/3gg0oIS

Here’s more COVID-19-induced stupidity compliments of Ars Technica, “A Chicago pharmacist was arrested yesterday on charges that he sold 125 authentic CDC vaccination cards to 11 buyers for about $10 per card, the Department of Justice announced. ‘Knowingly selling COVID vaccination cards to unvaccinated individuals puts millions of Americans at risk of serious injury or death,’ Special Agent Emmerson Buie Jr. said. ‘To put such a small price on the safety of our nation is not only an insult to those who are doing their part in the fight to stop COVID-19, but a federal crime with serious consequences.’ The licensed pharmacist, 34-year-old Tangtang Zhao, was indicted in July. Zhao worked for a pharmacy that went unnamed by the DOJ and that ‘distributed and administered COVID-19 vaccines at its physical locations nationwide.’ The company ‘provided a CDC Vaccination Record Card to each vaccine recipient’ as required by the CDC, and ‘Zhao obtained and subsequently offered authentic CDC vaccination cards for sale online,’ the DOJ said.” https://bit.ly/3katSc2

Thanks for reading. Let’s be careful out there.

IMAGE CREDIT: DonkeyHotey