Now it’s Covid Deer! By Chris Knight (Florida)

The fear now is for Covid in animal populations, such as deer. But, that could be a win-fall for the ever-greedy corporates of Big Pharma, who now will be advocating shooting up every animal in sight!

https://nypost.com/2021/11/02/deer-identified-as-widespread-carrier-of-coronavirus-study/

“Yet another study of white-tailed deer suggests that the North American population is harboring widespread coronavirus infection.

As much as 80% of the 445,000-strong Iowa deer population may carry the disease, according to a new study, The Times reported on Tuesday.

That rate of infection was said to be “effectively 50 times” more pervasive in deer than Iowa’s human population.

The pre-print report, now awaiting review from scientific peers prior to publication, showed that deer may have picked up the virus from humans sometime during the testing period, between April 2020 and January 2021, though Penn State researchers are not clear as to how cross-transmission could have occurred.

Their samples were derived from both roadkill and deer felled by hunters. An analysis of their lymph nodes reflected a genomic sequencing that hinted the virus had first traveled through humans before infecting the deer.

Conversely, there is yet no evidence to suggest that humans have contracted the virus from deer.

However, the prevalence of coronavirus among animals may hamper efforts to eradicate the disease from nature — meaning that the elimination of COVID-19 in humans wouldn’t necessarily be enough to prevent another outbreak.

Researchers and Iowa wildlife officials are sounding the alarm, particularly for deer hunters and other animal handlers, warning them to take extreme precautions with the animal in nature.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.31.466677v1

Abstract

Many animal species are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 and could potentially act as reservoirs, yet transmission in non-human free-living animals has not been documented. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), the predominant cervid in North America, are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and experimentally infected fawns transmit the virus to other captive deer. To test the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 may be circulating in deer, we evaluated 283 retropharyngeal lymph node (RPLN) samples collected from 151 free-living and 132 captive deer in Iowa from April 2020 through December of 2020 for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Ninety-four of the 283 deer (33.2%; 95% CI: 28, 38.9) samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA as assessed by RT-PCR. Notably, between Nov 23, 2020, and January 10, 2021, 80 of 97 (82.5%; 95% CI 73.7, 88.8) RPLN samples had detectable SARS-CoV-2 RNA by RT-PCR. Whole genome sequencing of the 94 positive RPLN samples identified 12 SARS-CoV-2 lineages, with B.1.2 (n = 51; 54.5%), and B.1.311 (n = 19; 20%) accounting for ~75% of all samples. The geographic distribution and nesting of clusters of deer and human lineages strongly suggest multiple zooanthroponotic spillover events and deer-to-deer transmission. The discovery of sylvatic and enzootic SARS-CoV-2 transmission in deer has important implications for the ecology and long-term persistence, as well as the potential for spillover to other animals and spillback into humans. These findings highlight an urgent need for a robust and proactive One Health approach to obtaining a better understanding of the ecology and evolution of SARS-CoV-2.”