More than 36 out of 5000 tests on cats and dogs proved positive for Covid

The Sun Sentinel tells us that one manufacturer providing Covid PCR tests for pets, IDEXX Laboratories, tested over 5,000 specimens from dogs, cats and horses. All of the animals had respiratory health issues. The tests confirmed that more than three dozen cases of Covid in either a dog or cat were positive. It appears that they had caught Covid from their human caregiver. This is a report from Florida and therefore these are Floridian cats.

More than 36 out of 5000 tests on cats and dogs proved positive for Covid. Image: MikeB

What is the interest? This is the first time that I have seen a measured percentage of cats and dogs contracting Covid from a large sample. Unfortunately, the report does not drill down and tell us the percentage for cats and for dogs. 

They have merged the two species. Nonetheless, 'more than 36' might be around 40 so 40/5000 is 0.8%, in percentage terms. That of course is less than 1%. So, we can say on the basis of this skimpy report that less than 1% of cats and dogs get Covid from their human caregiver in Florida. A very low figure.

It may be possible to extrapolate that information to other parts America but it might not be wise to do so. The information is useful because we can date it to January 2022. 

This is a time when the Omicron variant has spread rapidly. It is less severe but more contagious than the previous Delta variant. It is a sort of snapshot at a certain date about a certain variant and its impact on two species of companion animal. That might be useful to some people which is why I am reporting it.

No Covid vaccinations for pets because they aren't a priority

NEWS AND COMMENT: We, the public, know that lions, tigers and bears have been given Covid vaccinations. This tells us unequivocally that there is a Covid vaccine for animals, specifically zoo animals. This is because zookeepers who have been infected with Covid transmit the disease to captive animals at their zoo. This is important because the animals are valuable. They are an asset to the zoo and that asset needs to be protected with a vaccine.

RELATED: Tragedy: 3 snow leopards die of Covid

Free pet care clinic Seattle 2020. Ruth Fremson / The New York Times

However, despite the knowledge of an effective vaccination for animals, vaccines are unavailable for dogs and cats. This is simply because, on my understanding, that dogs and cats are de-prioritised.

The experts think that cats and dogs do not transmit Covid to their owners and other people living in their homes. One veterinarian, Dr. Elizabeth Lennon, working out of the University of Pennsylvania said that she is frequently asked when a vaccination will be made available for domestic cats and dogs.

The answer is that pets are simply not a priority according to experts. Dr. Lennon said that:

"To date, there hasn’t been any documented cases of dogs or cats spreading the virus to people."

And Dr. Will Sander, a veterinarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said that the risk of the disease spreading in pets is so low that any vaccine would not be worth giving.

RELATED: Can domestic cats transmit Covid?

This is a question of economics and finance and whether people can be bothered to vaccinate companion animals. At the moment the answer is that it is not worth vaccinating them.

My research does not specify absolutely that the vaccines given to zoo animals can be used on domestic animals. However, I can't see any reason why a vaccine used on a big cat like a tiger can't be used on a domestic cat. This is because they are exactly the same anatomically with some very minor differences excluding the size difference which is obvious. 😀.

But the point is that they are the same and they have the same physiology, so I would like someone to tell me why the vaccines made available to zoos in America can't also be made available to veterinarians. Is that such a big ask?

Even if the vaccine is de-prioritised for pets, it is hardly a great difficulty or burden to distribute it a little more widely to veterinarians.

Source: Seattle Times.

Free Covid test for cats and dogs in Seoul, South Korea

NEWS AND COMMENT-Seoul, South Korea: This is nice to see. There has been quite a lot of talk about cats and dogs creating a reservoir for the Covid virus. And the idea is that this reservoir may end up transmitting the virus from cats and dogs to people at some time in the future when people have managed to control and suppress the virus. Therefore, there is concern about cats and dogs catching the virus from people at this time.

And I suspect that the administrators of Seoul, Korea are aware of this potential and have decided to prevent cats and dogs getting the disease or preventing severe symptoms. However, it is also known that cats and dogs do not present with severe symptoms when they contract Covid. Therefore, I'm convinced that the administrators of this city are more concerned about curtailing the possibility of a reservoir forming in animals which would jeopardise their control of the virus.

Soeul, South Korea. Photo: Pixabay.

So can dog owners can request a free Covid test if their companion animals show symptoms and have had contact with infected humans. I suspect, by the way, that the infection rate in companion animals is higher than people imagine.

Only pets with symptoms which are the classic Covid symptoms such as coughing and breathing difficulties will be tested. And the authorities are asking people to apply the social distancing rules with regard to their pets. They want people to keep their dogs two metres away from other people when they are going for a walk.

Other cities and areas in the country are also planning to provide a test for companion animals. In the southern city of Jinju last month, a kitten became the first animal in South Korea to be confirmed as having the Covid virus. It is believed that the kitten caught the virus from a mother and/or her daughter who were among dozens of people infected when they attended a religious facility in the city.

South Korea has a high level of personal discipline among citizens which has helped the country do better than most others in managing the virus. This is another example of good policy.

P.S. South Korea has a reputation for eating cat and dog meat and killing them brutally. By Western standards this is unacceptable. It points to a very human-centric attitude. The Covid test is designed to protect people and has nothing to do with animal welfare.

Cats and dogs often catch Covid when their owners are infected

The word "often" in the title is a bit startling. It was known that cats can get the disease from their owners but until recently it seems we did not know how common this was. But now we do because according to research at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, six cats and seven dogs tested positive for the disease and 54 pets were found to have antibodies to the disease out of a total of 310 pets tested in 196 households. 54 pets out of a total of 310 is 17%. The research indicates that 17% of cats and dogs get the disease from their owners if their owners have suffered from the disease.

Cats can get Covid from their owners in bed. Photo: Photo: crisisangels, via lorenzens-soil.

This I think is useful information. It indicates that, as stated, it is quite common for owners to transmit the disease to their cats and dogs. It makes you wonder whether the virus might become a reservoir in those companion animals and pass it to visitors to the owners' homes. I'm sure this is being considered by scientists.

Disappointingly, the director of the University's Veterinary Microbiological Diagnostic Centre said that the purpose of the research was to protect people not the animals. He said that humans rather than pet health was the main concern for the researchers. I don't like that. I wouldn't like that because I'm an animal advocate. I can't see why he can't be equally concerned that animals and people. What is wrong in saying that?

He did go on to say that "if you have Covid, you should avoid contact with your cat or dog, just as you would with other people". This is not going to happen. One reason is because people just don't keep up-to-date with research on Covid such as the research I'm referring to here. Another reason is that people cannot stay away from their cats and dogs because they are too important to them.

The good thing, as mentioned in earlier articles is that pets tend to be asymptomatic or at worst, they display very mild Covid symptoms. And all the research points to the transmission of disease from people to people and people to animals but not animals to people. Although, I suspect that when further research is done on that they will discover that companion animals transmit the disease to people. Watch this space.

The researchers say that, "We can't say there is a 0% risk of owners catching Covid from their pets. At the moment the pandemic is still driven by human-to-human infections, so we just wouldn't detect it."

The research also found that when pets sleep on the bed of their owners, they are more likely to catch the virus from their owners. It might work in the other direction as well. A lot of people let their cats sleep with them at night as I do. I don't think this information will change their habits. Those that don't allow it will be reinforced by this information.

Dorothee Bienzle, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Guelph said tellingly, "If someone has Covid-19 there is a surprisingly high chance they will pass it on to their pet. Cats, especially those that sleep on their owner's bed seem to be particularly vulnerable."

She recommends people keep away from their pets! It won't happen so don't bother to mention it.

Cats must have negative Covid test before entering India

The Indian government has made it mandatory for members of the cat family to have a negative test for Covid before they are allowed into the country. This includes domestic cats to the big cats, in fact any cat! The new rules also include gorillas. The objective is obvious, namely to try and minimise the spread of the disease in the country. It is the first of its kind. 

It's an interesting rule because the experts have consistently stated that there is no evidence that cats transmit the disease to people despite the fact that that it is a zoonotic disease. Zoonotic diseases are those that can be transmitted between humans and animals and vice versa.

Cats must have negative Covid test before entering India

So, I guess this rule has been enacted out of an abundance of caution, as the politicians say. The government states that large cats and gorillas are "having high susceptibility of infection against natural Covid-19 infection". The information for this they say comes from the World Animal Health Organisation Technical Fact Sheet.

The rule will be in place until the pandemic has ended. The negative test must be no older than three days. The world knows that India is going through a surge in infections for Covid. Their reported rate of infection and deaths are highly misleading. They are heavily underreported. The families of people who die of Covid do not report the matter. These people are not taken to hospital. There is no record of them dying. They are burnt on funeral pyres. We see them in car parks.

It is entirely wrong for the news media to list comparisons of infections and deaths on a country-by-country basis because each country reports this data differently. If there was a uniform reporting system you can compare the data but this is not the case.

The UK, for example, states that if anybody dies within 28 days of getting Covid their death certificate states that they died of Covid! There is no other country on the planet that is so generous in his assessment of death by Covid! And yet the UK is constantly criticised the high death rates. I'm digressing.

Big cats and zoos have been known to get Covid from their zookeepers. Domestic cats and dogs have contracted Covid but we don't know the numbers but they are very low. It is a minor issue in controlling the virus. Although some scientists believe that animals may become a reservoir for the virus when it has been quelled by social distancing and vaccinations.

I would expect further action to take place both in India and in other countries with respect to how we deal with zoo and companion animals. There is a call for vaccinating animals against the virus and in Russia they do have a vaccination for that purpose. But can we trust Russian vaccinations? Russian citizens do not trust their own vaccine which is why they have an incredibly poor rate of take-up of inoculations against the virus in Russia. I'm digressing again!

9 possible signs your cat has Covid-19

First things first: in the USA, according to the Humane Society there have been 49 confirmed cases of Covid-nineteen in cats and 35 confirmed cases in dogs. As there are around an estimated 94 million domestic cat companions in the US, you can see that this is not a problem that people should get wound up about. At the moment it seems that the chances of your cat contracting Covid-19 are extremely, almost infinitesimally small.

A high temperature is the first sign that your cat or dog might have Covid. Image: PoC.

The best way to protect your cat, I would have thought, is to protect yourself by following the well-publicised procedures. And in the USA a high percentage of cat owners keep their cats inside full-time which must protect them from this disease. That said, Newsweek have written about the nine signs that your cat has Covid so I will reproduce them here just for the sake of completeness. I think it's nice to know these just in case you and your cat are unlucky.

It's probably worth saying that one of the signs of Covid in people is a lack of taste and smell which are two symptoms that we can't know that I cat suffers from because the only way of finding out is to ask your cat! Perhaps we should assume that those symptoms are also present (which may affect their appetite) to which you can add the following:

1. A fever. A fever is when the body temperature exceeds the normal temperature for an adult cat which is between 100-103° Fahrenheit with an average of 101.5 degrees F. How do you tell that your cat has a fever? Well of course you can measure the temperature and I have a page on that was you can see by clicking here. But what are the outward signs? A veterinary website tells us that they are: loss of appetite, depression, lack of energy, decrease drinking, decreased grooming, rapid breathing and shivering;
2. Coughing. The should be persistent coughing which will be different to the sort of sound a cat makes when the vomiting up a hair ball which is not coughing at all;
3. Difficulty in breathing with shallow breath;
4. Lethargy. Lethargy is a classic symptom of a cat feeling ill and it should be noticeable to most cat owners who are reasonably emotionally close to their cat;
5. Sneezing;
6. Runny nose;
7. Eye discharge;
8. Vomiting;
9. Diarrhoea.

There has been quite a lot of talk about cats and dogs getting Covid which I think is out of an abundance of caution because there is precious little evidence that pets transmit the disease to people living in the same household.

It's a shame that they get it at all because this is a human-created global problem. It is through human carelessness that this has happened although the World Health Organisation is still trying to find out where it started without the cooperation of the Chinese! That I think tells us a story.

If the above signs are present then the usual procedures concerning people should apply to a cat or dog. This means isolating the animal but before that you have to get confirmation from a veterinarian that your dog or cat does indeed have Covid. Nothing stupid should happen. No one should panic or do anything which would harm the companion animal in any way.

P.S. in Siamese and other pointed cats if they have a temperature it may affect the color of their non-pointed coat. It might be lighter.