
Coronavirus: Belgian woman infected her cat - evo_9
https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/103003/coronavirus-belgian-woman-infected-her-cat/
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jagger27
I can't imagine it's terribly likely, but imagine if you infected your outdoor
cat, which then infected other neighbourhood cats, which then infected people
who were otherwise isolating themselves?

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rdiddly
It's like a diabolical apocalyptic sci-fi plot twist.

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loopz
The truly diabolical twist is a nefarious virus mutation in the pet strain,
for a 2nd deadly wave after general societal fatigue.

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RickJWagner
Earlier, WHO tested canines to see if they could contract the virus. After
extensive quarantine and testing, WHO determined the dogs could not carry the
virus and released them back to their owners.

That's right, WHO let the dogs out.

(Downvote as you must. It was worth it.)

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midrus
Woofff..wof..wooof

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econcon
Assuming virus structure doesn't change inside pets, why pet to human
transmission is not possible? Shouldn't it be very likely?

You've a virus which can go from humans to pets and reverse, why? Any other
virus where it's proven to be only one way street?

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crispyporkbites
No. Viruses from humans cannot be carried by dogs or other pets, except in
very extreme cases. Stastically speaking it doesn’t happen and it’s not
something to worry about.

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Mountain_Skies
Wonder how long the virus can survive on the fur of a pet. This is very
different than the animal being infected and becoming a production factory for
a virus but if we're being cautious about spreading the virus through contact
with shared objects, pets seem like they could be a vector for a period of
time. Perhaps a day or two?

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etiam
The observation is sound. And also note that pets may be much more likely than
(adult) humans to go into contact with some things and areas contaminated by
saliva.

As for the stability, unless fur is more hostile than plastic or stainless
steel, detectable viable virus at 72 hours is indicated in this recent article
by van Doremalen et al.

[https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973](https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973)

Experience from other coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV, shows
even longer persistence for some surfaces and environmental conditions. Please
see Table I in Kampf et al. this January

[https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-670...](https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701\(20\)30046-3/abstract)

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doodlebugging
I have been wondering about this myself. I have a cat that lives entirely
outside, the second sweetest cat ever. If I get sick I sure don't want to
infect my cat. Now, I wouldn't mind if the cat caught it, was not sick herself
and then passed it on to some of the rat population around here as long as the
rats got sick.

Also, are there any reports that this virus can jump to birds like chickens? I
have been looking for chickens since eggs seem to be in short supply around
here.

Good luck to all of y'all.

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pravda
What? How could a cat pass anything on to a rat?

You think rats go looking for cats to snuggle up with? Prey animals generally
try to avoid their predictors.

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tzs
> What? How could a cat pass anything on to a rat?

Everybody poops.

Everybody eats and drinks.

Sometimes these two overlap more than is sanitary.

It's not a virus, but check out the parasite toxoplasma gondii for an example
of an organism that uses this mechanism to get from cats (it only can
reproduce in cat intestines) to rats (where it lives in their brains).

It needs to get back to cats from the rats when it is time to reproduce, which
is the really interesting part of its life cycle. It doesn't just wait around
on the off chance a cat will happen to eat the rat. No, it alters the rat's
brain to make the rat lose its fear of the smell of cat urine. Normally, rats
avoid territory marked by cats, but not those with a toxoplasma gondii
infestation. It even makes male rats confuse that smell with that of a female
rat, so they actually end up seeking out cats.

Truly something out of a horror movie [1].

PS: it's also not uncommon in humans.

[1] [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-
parasite-t...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-parasite-
that-makes-a-rat-love-a-cat-86515093/)

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lend000
Perhaps someone with a better understanding of virology can clarify this for
me.

My understanding is that the coronavirus binds to relatively generic cell
receptors present on lots of different cell types (ACE-2 and possibly others)
and this is responsible for the wide variety of symptoms, depending on which
of the many susceptible areas of the body get infected first.

This may also enable lots of different species with these similar generic
receptors to become infected. This virus seems like the ultimate generalist.

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etiam
Hardly ultimate, but coronaviruses are apparently (in)famous for a relatively
high propensity to cross species barriers.

This review from 2017 looks very relevant
[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coviro.2017.01.002](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coviro.2017.01.002)

I'll leave the rest to people who may have specialist level competence on the
topic.

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mkagenius
This is weird.

> the cheetahs, but developed no overt symptoms [6]. Also, experimental
> transmission of the Aju-CoV to three domestic kittens failed to cause
> disease [6]. Perhaps also relevant is that when the human SARS-CoV was
> induced in domestic cats, they developed no symptoms

1\. [https://www.cell.com/current-
biology/pdf/S0960-9822(04)00143...](https://www.cell.com/current-
biology/pdf/S0960-9822\(04\)00143-5.pdf)

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Amygaz
I also find this weirdly dubious, but not impossible. I do know that to study
human coronavirus in mice, we had to create a mouse line expressing the human
ACE2 protein.

I just did a quick protein alignment and the %sequence identity between human
and select animals are:

Bats: 81.5% Mice: 81.9% Dogs: 84.1% Cats: 85.2%

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etiam
Related: further corroboration of infection in the dogs in Hong Kong.

[https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-
environment/artic...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-
environment/article/3077177/coronavirus-final-testing-hong-kong-dogs-blood)

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russfink
And pets will practice social distancing even worse than people, if you can
imagine that.

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cperciva
Cats are probably better at social distancing than dogs.

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pugworthy
Tell that to Hillary, who insists on sitting on my wife's chest any time she
lies down. Or Henry who insists on sleeping on my shoulder when I lie down.

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eruci
Good luck teaching social distance to cats and dogs.

