COVID detected in deer for first time
The virus that causes COVID-19 has been detected for the first time in Canada’s wild deer population, and nobody really knows what that means.
Federal authorities say they’ve been testing for SARSCoV-2 ever since it was discovered in wild deer in the United States in the spring and last week a Canadian lab confirmed the coronavirus was identified in three wild “free-ranging” white-tailed deer in the Eastern townships, a region of Quebec that borders the U.S.
Although there is no known transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from deer to humans, Ottawa is warning people to take precautions if exposed to deer “respiratory tissues and fluids.”
Scott Weese, a veterinary infectious disease specialist with the Ontario Veterinary College and director of the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses, said in an interview the discovery is not a surprise but it is cause for concern if the deer population becomes a new “reservoir” for the coronavirus.
“We don’t want this in an animal because then they’re a new source of infection over time, because we’re not going to eradicate it from animals,” he said. The other concern is the potential for variants to develop which would complicate the fight against COVID-19.
“There’s always a chance of the virus changing, and if it’s doing that in a new host, a new species … to adapt to that host, what we don’t want to do is have this virus circulating around a deer that can then infect us or create new variants that can then infect us. We don’t know if that’s gonna happen, but that’s why we’re looking into it.”
The coronavirus has spilled over from humans into other animal populations around the world, infecting many species that come into contact with humans, but there haven’t been reports those animals then transmitted the virus to humans.
Weese suggested that there is more deer-human contact than people think, especially in suburban areas.
Deer may be found feeding in backyards, and may come into contact with people or with other animals, like cats, that may be infected.