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SARS-CoV-2 in American deer could alter the course of the global pandemic
- throwaway4good 5y ago"If that's the case, it would essentially dash any hopes of eliminating or eradicating the virus in the U.S. — and therefore in the world — says veterinary virologist Suresh Kuchipudi at Penn State, who co-led the study." When Denmark discovered that COVID19 was running wild in their mink farms, they culled millions of minks and banned the entire industry which was the third largest within the agricultural sector in the country.
- Mizza 5y agoI'm from Pennsylvania. Culling all the deer would be like culling all the rats or pigeons in New York. It's not a possibility.
- prox 5y agoJust make it very profitable. Buffalo were wiped out pretty quickly.
- rwmj 5y agoNot to mention passenger pigeons :-(
- nradov 5y agoIs that a joke? You can't seriously be advocating the extinction of a crucial species. And it's not just deer. Many other mammal species can also catch and transmit SARS-CoV-2.
- prox 5y agoNo not advocating for extinction, just an observation we humans are really good at killing whole species.
- pvaldes 5y agoIt doesn't need to cull all the deer. Wolves would remove the disease for free with surgical precision. Targeting the ill and weak, is what they do all the time. Or we could vaccinate the deer and let the natural selection act over the Qmamon crew, of course. Even the big birds are vaccinated (and Colbert is a genius).
- makeitrain 5y agoBefore we had people vaccines, we social isolated. It will be even more difficult to get deer to follow isolation and masking protocols and to show up to a vaccination clinic.
- retrac 5y agoThere is no evidence yet the deer actually get sick. It's quite normal for a virus to be terribly pathogenic in one mammalian species, and able to infect a wide variety of others but without illness or only minor illness. For example, camelpox (related to smallpox) is horrible in camels and kills a quarter of camels infected. In humans and most other mammals it usually is limited to skin sores at the site of contact and goes away quickly. Similarly, monkeypox is highly contagious and usually fatal in its host monkeys, much less contagious and only infrequently fatal in humans, and downright hard to give to a cow or mouse and it won't make them ill. But they can catch it. All of the poxes exhibit that trait, with family- or genus-specific pathogenicity but broad cross-species contagiousness.
- pvaldes 5y agoThis is the reason to humans being unable to do this task, but wolves still are able to discover and target preys with the virus. Preys are proven in the hardest conditions possible. Even a small respiratory problem would eventually appear and be fatal if the prey must endure a long distance chase running from wolves.
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- beagle3 5y agoDanish mink are farmed, and the intervention was in those farms. American dear are wild.
- throwaway4good 5y agoSure. But couldn't the US government have done something if they wanted to? I think it shows a very different attitude towards the pandemic.
- mcntsh 5y agoWhat are you suggesting exactly? Culling the white tail dear population across the USA?
- makeitrain 5y agoI mean we have enough rednecks to get it done. Declare open season and even provide a bounty and it could be done shockingly quick. It's probably not a good idea though. I don't know, I'll yield to the science on this one.
- simonsarris 5y agoThe USA has many places without any roads at all, which require ~75 mile hikes to get to, like parts of Wyoming, and also shares a 2,5000 mile border with a neighboring country that is mostly uninhabited land. We do not have remotely enough resources to eradicate deer even if we were crazy enough to.
- nradov 5y agoIs that a joke? You can't seriously be advocating the extinction of a crucial species. And it's not just deer. Many other mammal species can also catch and transmit SARS-CoV-2.
- snarf21 5y agoNot all hunters are rednecks. Also, clearly you have never gone hunting. Let's rephrase this in a more understandable way. Do you think it would be possible to kill/capture ALL the pigeons in even a single city
- yosito 5y ago> If that's the case, it would essentially dash any hopes of eliminating or eradicating the virus There are enough antivaxers that I think those hopes have been dashed already.
- encryptluks2 5y agoAnd there are enough vaxed people spreading the virus as well.
- topspin 5y ago"eliminating or eradicating the virus in the U.S." I sincerely didn't imagine anyone still thought this was feasible. Is this really still an aspiration that can be offered with a straight face? I want to point and laugh, but this is NPR so I know that's not allowed...
- encryptluks2 5y agoBut people not getting vaccines are the reason we're here!!! /s Seriously, can't we just accept reality and get back to normal. Those that want the vaccine should get it and those that don't shouldn't. I think the harm being caused by the ridiculous mandates at this point have done equal harm.
- hef19898 5y agoI would agree if it wasn't for all those people that cannot get vaccinated. Young children, people with auto-immune diseases, transplant patients, certain kinds of cancer... I just guess taking one for the team went out of fashion a while ago.
- ulfw 5y agoErm why do you think those can NOT get vaccinated? Quite the opposite. They need more boosters as the vaccines don't generate enough immune response.
- tpm 5y agoOr those who can get the vaccine but it won't help them much. But, as you say, homo homini lupus.
- encryptluks2 5y agoStudies have shown that deaths from COVID among children are incredibly rare, and more kids die from the flu than from COVID. People with auto-immune diseases, transplant patients and certain kinds of cancer have always been more susceptible to illness. Never have we mandated flu vaccines before, and those people would be equally as susceptible. However, I think you should be asking yourself.. if an mRNA vaccine presents auto-immune response, who is to say that isn't harming those being forced to be vaccinated? There is little to be understood about many auto-immune diseases, just look at fibromyalgia, which has often been labeled as a psychological condition and not a physical one. Many doctors still don't believe it is real, and if you use it for a disability claim it is difficult to prove. If what you're saying is to be considered, then it must also be considered that the vaccine could have subtle side effects that may not be immediately known and later exhibit themselves as incredibly hard to diagnose and nearly impossible to detect illnesses.
- Narretz 5y agoAren't the influenca virus types non-reservoired (except type a). And they still come back every season. I don't think a reservoir will make that much of a difference.
- bluGill 5y agoFlu mutates very fast. Thus it only takes a few cases keeping it going and then a mutation evades vaccines and it is back. Better vaccines would help, but we don't know how to do that.
- cblconfederate 5y agoSince deer do nothing to stop the virus, maybe natural selection will evolve a more benign version among them?
- mcbits 5y agoMaybe more benign or more malignant among them, or maybe more benign or more malignant among us, yes. Or they may reach literal herd immunity before any significant mutations get established.
- tjansen 5y agoHow does it spread from humans to deer? Do you have to sneeze at the deer, or be in the same room? And how can it transmit back? I thought it was an airborne virus...
- Jensson 5y agoDeer like most urban animals eat human garbage. I wouldn't be surprised if they ate stuff like used facemasks and napkins and got corona that way.
- mach1ne 5y agoProbably from breath. It jumped from humans to deer in the first place, meaning that such encounters do occur. And since COVID is hardly recognizable from normal flu without a test, even one such encounter is enough to restart the pandemic.
- topspin 5y ago"How does it spread from humans to deer?" Deer and humans live in very close proximity. I routinely startle deer just getting the mail and stuff.
- nytesky 5y agoMy impression was that being outside virtually eliminated transmission; I can’t imagine people bring deer indoor — are people nuzzling their faces into deer???
- landemva 5y agoLive virus is found in human feces. In humans, it transmits through lack of hand washing while preparing food.
- Reason077 5y ago> ”it would essentially dash any hopes of eliminating or eradicating the virus in the U.S. — and therefore in the world” Surely there’s no realistic hope of that anyway. It’s long been assumed than SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic in humans, just like existing human Coronaviruses. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00493-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00493-9
- bluGill 5y agoRubella was endemic for years, but is now eliminated in most counties. With vaccines endemic is a step to elimination in some cases.
- nikbackm 5y agoSeems the rubella vaccines have greater efficacy and gives much longer protection (life-long) than the current COVID vaccines though.
- pvaldes 5y agoThey had a decade to develop and much more to improve. Nothing prevent us to improve this also.
- wk_end 5y agoThere may be hard biological limits to what our vaccines can do. It's certainly possible that vaccines might come along that could let us eradicate SARS-CoV-2; but until they do, that's nothing but wishful thinking.
- Reason077 5y agoYes, Smallpox and Polio would be other examples of successful eradication programs (the later hasn’t been entirely eliminated in the wild, but it does seem like it’s within reach) But those are very different viruses to SARS-CoV-2. Even if we could achieve 100% vaccination coverage, it’s likely that the virus would still circulate because our immunity is not 100% effective at preventing infection and shedding.
- max-ibel 5y agoWould be interesting to know if the virus might not actually have jumped from deer to humans in the first place (instead of from bats.)
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- dazag 5y agoWait until the winter ends and we talk. But it seems the vaccines don't work, all around the world, no matter the % of people vaccinated.
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- makeitrain 5y agoAll evidence I've seen shows the vaccines drastically reduce chance of infection and severity of symptoms. What are you referring to?
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThere's work, and then there's work. A polio vaccine means that I won't get polio. A rubella vaccine means I won't get rubella. A Covid vaccine means that I'm only 10-40% as likely to get Covid. (Chime in with more accurate numbers if you have them.) And it means that I'm less likely to get a severe case. That's not nothing. It's significant, both to me as an individual, and for society-wide epidemiological reasons. But it's not the same as the other vaccines. "One of these is not like the others." And, yeah, I might get a one-in-a-million breakthrough case for polio or rubella. One of these things still isn't like the others. So: The Covid vaccine works, but it doesn't work - not in the same way that other vaccines do. (In the same way, the flu vaccine works, but doesn't work.)
- mcbits 5y agoWhere Covid vaccination could work (remains to be seen) is if, combined with other mitigation measures, it brings the effective reproduction rate down low enough and for long enough to eradicate the virus. Problem is, the long tail can last for years, and every time the goal has been within grasp, people would see the falling numbers and assume that meant it was already over. Vaccination makes that less of a problem. Polio and MMR vaccines aren't 99.9999% effective, either. More like 80-99%. A breakthrough is extremely unlikely because you're not likely to be exposed to those viruses at all anymore. But it took decades to reach this point.
- inciampati 5y agoIs there evidence of other respiratory viruses transmitting from humans to deer?
- MiSeRyDeee 5y agoI wish we were China, they will kill all the deers
- nradov 5y agoIs that a joke? You can't seriously be advocating the extinction of a crucial species. And it's not just deer. Many other mammal species can also catch and transmit SARS-CoV-2.
- kyleee 5y agoI'm guessing in the US one could get probably a solid 30 - 40% support for mass eradication of deer with a few headlines like this making the rounds. The hubris never ceases to astound
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThat's the third time you've posted the same comment, verbatim, in this thread. I get that you think it's a solid point, but it's getting old by now...
- pvaldes 5y ago> I wish we were China, they will kill all the deer I think that Chinese learned that lesson yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Removing all the deer suddenly would raise a nuclear explosion of rodents. Ecology is complicated (but fair).