Culling of animals in Hong Kong criticized

Hong Kong’s decision to kill thousands of hamsters, rabbits and chinchillas on the unproven risk that they could spread COVID-19 to humans is an overreaction borne of politics that may have no impact on the pandemic, experts said.

The city, which has staked its reputation and its future on being a COVID-FREE bastion, is grappling with the simultaneous arrival of the omicron and delta variants after more than six months without a single local infection that wasn’t tied to international travel.

While its robust tracking and tracing efforts allowed experts to pinpoint the origin of almost every omicron infection, the case of delta that unexpectedly appeared in a local pet store worker flummoxed officials and led them to consider less likely scenarios.

Hamsters can be infected with COVID and have been shown to spread it within their species directly or through the air, though studies show they harbor active virus for only a handful of days. There’s no evidence they can spread it to people.

“As hamsters do not appear to be the wellspring for COVID-19, it is probable that they were infected from an outside, human source,” said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong. “Absent any evidence to the contrary, the culling of the estimated 2,000 hamsters cannot be justified and needs to be seen as an unfortunate, excessive reaction to this one cluster.”

Hong Kong officials said their hands were forced when the testing of dozens of small pets turned up 11 infected hamsters at the pet store, called Little Boss. Traces of the virus also were found at an offsite warehouse.