My intention here is not to cause fear, it’s to raise the awareness that animals are not all immune. While it’s very likely your animals and your families will be fine, we don’t have enough data to know what is occurring. My hope is that more people will ask for more information to put some pressure on this topic so proper testing is done for animals and we take care of them when needed. I have spoken with several clients who have told me their vets assure them no animals can every get sick from this when we have proven, documented cases and studies. Ignoring the fact that animals can potentially get sick isn’t going to make it go away and we need more scientists studying this topic so we can get solid information to keep our precious animals safe.
Covid 19 has now been well-known since the beginning of the year and I feel it’s irresponsible that in the time of a pandemic, accurate information about the viability of animals getting it, if they get sick from it, if they can pass it on to one another, if they can get it from or transmit it to humans and how to help them if they get sick, has not been adequately studied or even deemed important in the information we are receiving.
According to the AVMA (https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/reports-statistics/us-pet-ownership-statistics), more than 76 million dogs, more than 58 million cats and millions of other animals are part of the households of Americans and this is barely discussed in reference to the pandemic. The fact that according to current data this is a zoonotic disease (ie. transmitted from animals to humans) I’m surprised at this.
In this post I’ll offer what I can to provide information, unfortunately, it’s limited at this time to mostly the information for cats and dogs.
The studies done on cats and dogs focused on if they can infect each other (shedding the virus), if they show symptoms from the virus, what the immune response is and if there are long term effects. From what I’ve read there hasn’t been much research on the potential for cats or dogs to infect or reinfect (ie. be infected by a human and then reinfect the human) humans.
For Cats
- Cats can and do get the virus and can get the virus from humans (reverse zoonosis) and then will shed the virus and can easily infect other cats if kept in an enclosed space. While current studies do not show much potential for cats to infect humans through viral shedding, we cannot say this for certain at this time.
- Cats usually create a strong immune response to the virus and therefore, do not present symptoms
- Upon autopsy, they do show the virus did have an affect on some of the cells of the cats infected, we don’t know the long term effects at this time.
- Bottom line: Cats shed the virus easily, can pick it up from humans and other cats (and possibly other animals we don’t know this one yet) and we need to be conscious of this and consider things like the potential for outdoor cats to bring the virus to other animals in the home. We also need to do more scientific studies to ensure that it cannot be spread from cats to humans, especially those who are at high risk as many seniors with underlying conditions have pets in the home. Also, especially during this time of isolation, many of the pets currently with those at high risk were from shelters where many cats were placed in enclosed spaces together for periods of time.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/09/28/2013102117
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2013400
For Dogs
- Dogs can and do get the virus yet unlike cats are not proving to shed the virus in a way that seems it would be possible for them to infect other animals or humans, though as with cats, we cannot say this for certain as there has been minimal testing.
- Those dogs who tested positive did not show symptoms though, this is a hard one to prove as some owners may pick up on something being wrong that a lab tech would not see.
- Bottom line: We don’t know enough about this to ensure dogs cannot spread the virus to one another or to humans and we do not know the long or short term affects on their bodies.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2334-5
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDAAPHIS/bulletins/28eae2e
Closing thoughts:
- First, while I realize we need to test animals for the virus to help them, I hope we move forward with humane ways to do so without causing them further harm.
- As we know that humans can spread the disease to animals, please, if you are sick, quarantine yourself from your pets until you are not contagious.
- I’m alarmed that the studies are claiming that because more humans are testing positive for the virus they are assuming animals aren’t getting it often. How is this scientific? We aren’t testing animals. We aren’t telling people this can happen or giving anyone a way to test their animals. Saying things like ‘at this time we are not thinking it’s easily transmitted because we have few confirmed cases’ is irresponsible. Better to say, ‘we aren’t doing adequate testing and from the testing we can say it can be spread these ways’. Then we do more testing to get accurate information.
- I feel this area of research needs to be developed quickly, humanely and with the assumption that if we don’t have evidence, that doesn’t mean that it’s not real, it means we need to do further study.
Blessings and wishing you and your animals good health! Satya
Additional link:
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/sa_one_health/sars-cov-2-animals-us
Recent Comments