In New York City Sewage, a Mysterious Coronavirus Signal | Hacker News Reader

In New York City Sewage, a Mysterious Coronavirus Signal

nytimes.com

6 pointsdaegloe7 comments

I sense a real reluctance on the part of some scientists to admit that covid-19 has already gotten an animal reservoir (or three), perhaps because they just at an emotional level don't want it to be true, perhaps because they worry about the policy implications.

If a disease is in an animal reservoir you keep away from that animal, it's basic public health. Everybody knows to stay away from raccons, foxes and bats because they carry rabies, and everyone keeps out mice, because mice carry all kinds of disease, including hantavirus and plague. This is basic public health.

What happens when the reservoir is the family dog or a free-range pet cat? Or maybe domesticated animals are less likely to get sick in the first place?

The way that family dogs live, they are effectively family members, so you can reduce exposure and whatever family member has it goes into quarantine. If exposure reduction means no dog park because its spreads in dog parks as much as it does in schools, so be it.

Free range cats - if cats bring it home from wherever they go, well, no more free range for the cat.

It's hard to understand where the defeatism and the absolute unwillingness to follow simplest public health measures comes from.

Well, the list of animals in whom covid-19 has been found, is getting quite long. Mink, hamsters, white tailed deer, and wide variety of zoo animals. My guess is that the actual list is "mammals".

One should, for sure, leave wild animals alone. But then, we may leave them alone, but that doesn't mean they leave us alone. Raccoons, rats, mice, possums, and a variety of other animals find their way into attics and basements and backyard sheds.

Perhaps the reason that scientists don't want to talk too much about animal reservoirs (with the public anyway), is that the likely result is a genocidal push to kill all mammals, like the mink in Denmark or the hamsters in Hong Kong.

Test the rats

"Since last summer, the scientists have been working with Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to look for signs of the virus in blood and fecal samples from local rats. So far, they’ve come up empty."

Leaving the unpleasant possibility that cats and dogs, the only other species whose DNA is found in quantity in the NYC sewage, are the carriers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com