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A wild mink in Utah has Covid-19. Veterinarians fear this is just the beginning.

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https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2...las-tigers

EXCERPT: “If we’re careful — and we’re lucky — there won’t be a wildlife population that becomes infected and becomes an established reservoir that can also infect people,” Sarah Olson, associate director of the health program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, says. “If it does, then we’ve got a long-term issue here, where this virus has the potential to be with us for millennia. And millennia is a long time. The risk may be small, but the consequences are huge.”

Our luck may soon be tested. On December 13, the US Department of Agriculture reported that a wild mink in Utah tested positive for the coronavirus. “To our knowledge, this is the first free-ranging, native wild animal confirmed with SARS-CoV-2,” the National Veterinary Services Laboratories reported. A genetic analysis of the virus suggested the wild mink picked it up from a nearby mink farm, perhaps via wastewater runoff from the farm.

No other species surrounding the farm were found to be infected, though, and there’s no evidence that Covid-19 is spreading among wild mink. One possibility is the wild mink could have just picked it up from the farm and has not spread it since.

Another possibility: We haven’t yet detected a bigger outbreak. “This is potentially going to be a more widespread problem in wild mink,” says Stephanie Seifert, a researcher at Washington State University’s school for global animal health. It’s “very unlikely they swabbed the only wild mink with SARS-CoV-2.”

Mink are just one species. There’s no comprehensive analysis of all the animals in the world, whether or not they can get Covid-19 and spread it among themselves, and potentially to other wildlife. The virus could be establishing copies of itself in nature right now, and we would have no real-time way of knowing... (MORE - details)
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