D&D and the rising pandemic

[Mirtek]

Now for the headache questions:
How did the deer get COVID?
Are there other animals it has jumped to?

Didn't some lions or tigers get infected in a zoo? So if they can get it, household cats should be able to get it too, shouldn't they?

So maybe from cat to deer?

Also if cats can get it, forget about deer. We'll have our unlimited reservoir right there.

 

[Zardnaar]

Didn't some lions or tigers get infected in a zoo? So if they can get it, household cats should be able to get it too, shouldn't they?

So maybe from cat to deer?

Also if cats can get it, forget about deer. We'll have our unlimited reservoir right there.

Mirtek how reliable is DW news? I've been watching that on YouTube about your country and Covid.

 

[Mirtek]

Mirtek how reliable is DW news? I've been watching that on YouTube about your country and Covid.

I don't really watch DW, but I would rate it as very reliable. It's the channel our public broadcasting made to inform viewers from foreign countries and the public broadcasting in Germany is generally seen as the most reliable news you can get.

We do have private stations, but none of their news comes even close to the viewer rates of the news on public broadcasting.

They're the reason why prime time TV in Germany starts at 20:15, because 20:00 - 20:15 is time of the Tagesschau and no channel dares to try to compete with that.

A short summary of Germany at the moment: It's a complete s##tshow. Infections rates are the highest we ever had and vaccinated and anti-vaccination crowds are at each other throats worse than ever before.

We're pretty close to getting a 2G rule (only vaccinated or revovered) for just about everything except work and public transport (to get to work) and even there 3G (vaccinated, recovered or negatively tested within the last 24h) seems to not be far off.

Currently christmas markets are still officially allowed, but I fully expect them to be officially cancelled before ever having the chance to open. Many local organizers are already cancelling on their own, trying to get of of existing contracts and avoid making any new contracts before they'll be forced to cancell anything anyway.

My state, RLP, actually entered the lastest round of relaxing restrictions last Monday. Currently there are no requirements anymore for any outside gatherings and events. No masks, no distance, no contract tracing, no testing, nothing at all. Now it was set in motion weeks ago that those new relaxed regulation would take effect on November 8th and back then the situation didn't look nearly as dire as it does now.

However I was still surprised that they did actually allow the regulation to take effect as planned instead of revoking it at the last minute.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

@Hussar

There’s actually more deer/human interaction than many people realize.

Besides their incursions into urbanized areas- often lured by feeders- deer are one of the most commonly hunted animals in the USA, both for trophies, as edible game, and in some areas, as pests. (See urban feeders, above.)

If deer become a significant long term reservoir for COVID, even if it doesn’t quickly mutate in them, they’ll still be in close proximity with humans who- demographically speaking- will more probably be unvaccinated.

But that’s not even the real issue. As you note, for the most part, we dont get that close to living deer, so the odds of direct deer=>human transmission would be low.

The thing is, all of the coronaviruses known to affect humans have had their “origins” traced back to reservoirs in rats or bats (hence the reason for the lab in Wuhan). But most of those aren’t believed to be direct zoonotic transmissions from rats/bats to humans, but rather via other (often unidentified) animals acting as vectors.

So if deer become a significant COVID reservoir, the risk of other animals that may interact with them carrying it to US increases greatly. Which means even if we managed to knock it down to virtually untraceable amounts in humans, there would always be a significant risk of a new outbreaks.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't really watch DW, but I would rate it as very reliable. It's the channel our public broadcasting made to inform viewers from foreign countries and the public broadcasting in Germany is generally seen as the most reliable news you can get.

We do have private stations, but none of their news comes even close to the viewer rates of the news on public broadcasting.

They're the reason why prime time TV in Germany starts at 20:15, because 20:00 - 20:15 is time of the Tagesschau and no channel dares to try to compete with that.

A short summary of Germany at the moment: It's a complete s##tshow. Infections rates are the highest we ever had and vaccinated and anti-vaccination crowds are at each other throats worse than ever before.

We're pretty close to getting a 2G rule (only vaccinated or revovered) for just about everything except work and public transport (to get to work) and even there 3G (vaccinated, recovered or negatively tested within the last 24h) seems to not be far off.

Currently christmas markets are still officially allowed, but I fully expect them to be officially cancelled before ever having the chance to open. Many local organizers are already cancelling on their own, trying to get of of existing contracts and avoid making any new contracts before they'll be forced to cancell anything anyway.

My state, RLP, actually entered the lastest round of relaxing restrictions last Monday. Currently there are no requirements anymore for any outside gatherings and events. No masks, no distance, no contract tracing, no testing, nothing at all. Now it was set in motion weeks ago that those new relaxed regulation would take effect on November 8th and back then the situation didn't look nearly as dire as it does now.

However I was still surprised that they did actually allow the regulation to take effect as planned instead of revoking it at the last minute.

Yeah a few people here don't seem to believe me when I say Europe's having issues.

Housing crisis plus inflation but it's happening world wide although the housing crisis is the worst here.

Also been watching DW documentaries. I know what's happening Covid related in Romania but idk who the captain of the all blacks is (NZ rugby team).

Things are t as bad here in a lot of ways but ideas from certain areas of the world eg between Canada and Mexico arrive here on social media.

Couple of white trash stoner types I know from high school have gone down the anti vax rabit hole. 30 odd years of smoking pot and they weren't that bright back in 94.

 

[Hussar]

Ok. That makes sense. I can see that. Deer is sick passes to something else that passes to humans.

 

[Zardnaar]

Deer introduced pest here. Can't shoot em fast enough. Venison pie and burgers are a thing go figure.

 

[Ryujin]

Urban exposure to deer, while not really usual, does in fact happen. Here are a couple of incidents in the Toronto area. I couldn't find the one in which a full grown deer was Tazered by police within view of the university at which I work.

Caught on camera: Deer runs through window of downtown Oshawa bar

Surveillance camera footage shows the moment a deer ran straight into a downtown Oshawa bar.

toronto.ctvnews.ca

Newborn deer exploring Toronto family's backyard

A Toronto family gained an adorable new neighbour Saturday morning after a baby deer was born just behind their backyard fence

toronto.citynews.ca

Doe-eyed deer are being spotted in random places all over Toronto

It may be the biggest city in Canada, but Toronto's connections to nature are never far away, and some residents have been getting first-hand encou...

www.blogto.com

 

[Umbran]

Didn't some lions or tigers get infected in a zoo? So if they can get it, household cats should be able to get it too, shouldn't they?

So maybe from cat to deer?

Also if cats can get it, forget about deer. We'll have our unlimited reservoir right there.

Note - My wife is a veterinarian, who has been keeping up with such matters.

You speak as if there's "Completely immune" and "catch and pass it easily", and that's not an accurate model at all.

There have been cases where felines of various sorts (and dogs) have become infected with SARS-COV-2. But they are exceedingly rare. And, as far as I am aware, there are no known cases of housecats getting it where they were not living in the home of someone who had active covid-19. Transmission from housepet to human is also rare.

Veterinary medicine has been paying close attention to this - housepets do not comprise a significant pool of virus.

 

[Umbran]

So, about deer...

How do deer get it? Well, many of the deer in the articles above were farm-raised (most deer meat you can buy is not wild hunted, folks!) and so had frequent contact with humans. And on farms, wild deer do often come by and interact with farmed deer through fences.

Also, wild deer do rummage through human trash - a deer getting into trash loaded with used tissues, and you have possible infection.

A major point to make is that we do not know if these deer can pass it back to humans. These deer were not tested by nose-swab, so the data does not directly indicate presence in the upper respiratory tract, or what levels it is present there in the deer - the droplet-based transmission we see in human transmission may not be a thing for deer.