Hey guys I'm Cleo. I'm a producer here at Vox and I'm also the host of Vox's
first-ever daily show. It's called Answered, it's on a new
streaming app called Quibi and every day we take on a question about this
confusing moment that we're living through. So now I get to share with you
guys one of my favorite episodes so far. Here we go.
By now you've probably heard of Nadia the tiger but if not allow me to
introduce you.
A tiger at a zoo in New York has tested positive for coronavirus
Researchers think that she caught it from a human zookeeper.
At the zoo four
year old Nadia her sister Azul, two amur Tigers and three lions all developed dry
coughs.
Don't worry. Nadia's doing a lot better now but her illness highlighted
something about the virus itself it's zoonotic. That means it can transmit
between humans and animals.
Now the bond between a Pomeranian and its owner may
have taken a serious turn.
The study showed Winston the family's fun-loving
pug contracted COVID-19.
According to the CDC and the US Department of Agriculture
two cats in separate parts of New York tested positive.
All of this has me wondering.
Which animals can catch coronavirus? Should I be worried about my
pet? I'm Cleo Abram and this is answered by Vox.
Well for most animals that we've
seen that can be infected by COVID-19, they don't have very serious symptoms .
That's Dr. William Karesh. He's a wildlife veterinarian and an
expert on animals and pandemics.
I have a dog. Should I be worried about my dog?
No. You should not be worried about your dog.
Dogs have been shown in rare cases to
pick up the virus but the virus doesn't grow very well in dogs.
People found out
that dogs have it just out of curiosity because the people in the homes were
very sick and they thought well let's just test the dogs and see if they might
have it. And they picked up the virus but the dogs weren't sick.
Cats seem to be more susceptible and cats can actually infect other cats
but they don't get very sick.
While it is possible for our pets to get very mild cases of COVID-19
the CDC says "The risk of animals spreading COVID-19 to people
is considered to be low."
So it seems like we can take our pets getting sick or
getting us sick off our list of worries.
But it's clear that COVID-19 can
transmit between humans and animals so researchers are trying to figure out
which animals are most susceptible.
Once the virus breaks into an animal's body
it needs to fit itself inside a special receptor on the target cell called ACE2
the virus and receptor act kind of like a lock and key.
The more easily the SARS-CoV2 virus latches on to a species ACE2 receptor,
the more likely that animal is to become infected.
Each species' ACE2 receptor is a little bit different,
so not all animals get infected equally.
The virus is more likely to bind in humans, camels, cats, pangolins and bats
but less likely in rats, mice, chickens and guinea pigs.
So this is the first part of the story
which which animals can it bind to, but it's not the whole story because we know
that pigs actually don't have a productive infection even though they
can receive the virus.
Which is why so many animals are susceptible to the
virus, but it doesn't make them sick.
We don't want to jump to too many
conclusions but it's a beautiful start to a way to look at susceptibility.
The ACE2 receptor is really only an indicator of whether or not an animal
can become infected with coronavirus. It doesn't tell us anything about how
coronavirus can spread between humans and animals.
I've heard people talk about bats, about pangolins,
about wet markets,
So I'm wondering what do we know for sure
about how COVID-19 got from animals to humans?
Well right now we don't know what the original animal source was.
We know that there's many viruses
very similar to COVID-19 like all it's kissing cousins and his brothers and
sisters.We find those in bats.
Many of the viruses that make us sick originally
came from the animal kingdom. The common cold originated in camels.
Many strains of flu come from pigs and birds.
HIV transferred to humans from a chimpanzee.
Ebola, SARS, Marburg, Nipah, and COVID-19 have all been linked to bats.
Is there a specific reason why these diseases come from bats as opposed
to other animals?
There's over 1,400 types of bats so
there are a lot of viruses for one thing. And then another is genetically,
we're not so distantly related to bats.
They're closer on the evolutionary tree,
they're closer to people than a lot of other animals are.
So the viruses of course then, it's easier to share viruses with things you're related to like
humans and gorillas can share a lot more viruses than anybody else.
Why is it though that when a virus like SARS-CoV2 jumps from animals to people it's so
deadly to us whereas it's less so to the original host animal?
All of us have viruses and bacteria living on us and we have grown used to them and over the
millennia we've actually evolved to use them when we spread them among species
they have very different reactions.
Over the last hundred years, the number of zoonotic diseases in people has been increasing.
On average a new infectious
disease emerges in humans every four months and 75% of them come from animals.
Zoonotic diseases have been around as long as there have been people and
animals together. What's new is what we call these new emerging infectious
diseases and that's a new virus like COVID-19. Those are becoming more and
more common. We have more exposure to wildlife as we encroach into wild areas
as we disturb habitats. They spread faster because of air travel and trade
so we live in a new world.
For now, we don't need to worry too much about the
animals in our lives getting sick from COVID-19.
But we should be worried about health and our relationship with the environment.
We need to detect these
things right away; not wait until they turn into a pandemic
And that's our show! Thanks for watching.
Every episode is kind of like that, it's five to six minutes long,
it takes on a question that's kind of in the
atmosphere right now and asks an expert for the answers that might make living
through this moment just a little bit easier.
So if you want to check it out
you can go to the link either up there or in the description down there,
Or you can go in your phone and download Quibi and search for 'Vox' or 'Answered'
I'll be there every day.