Researchers look at coronavirus in cats, potential link with humans

When the University of Wisconsin-Madison essentially shut down all in-person activities in March, virus researchers were some of the few people allowed to fully continue work on campus. Many had already been studying SARSCoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, for weeks, even months, before the pandemic spread domestically in the United States.

Last week, researchers at UW-Madison’s Influenza Research Institute published a study that found cats can contract and transmit SARSCoV-2 to one another. One senior scientist in the lab is Peter Halfmann, who said the findings can have important implications for both pet owners and animal care providers. In recent months, Halfmann has been expanding the group’s research and writing grants and manuscripts regarding COVID-19.

Belgium whose cat got sick. It was maybe the first case where we heard that it was being transmitted from human to cat. Then we heard about two cat owners in New York state. And then the Bronx Zoo, where there were five tigers and three lions that got infected by a zookeeper, which I think was the most remarkable thing — because you’d think the distancing between a zookeeper and a feline would be kind of great, but somehow they got infected.

Being part of the vet school and knowing there’s a lot of pet shelters around here, we wanted to know what the transmission kinetic would be like from cat to cat and start putting a piece of the puzzle together for the potential transmission changes that are going on.