Thread by @TrickFreee

Covid-19 mink variants discovered in humans in seven countries

Denmark has already launched a nationwide cull of its farmed mink herd after concerns for vaccine efficacy theguardian.com/environment/20…

Dead minks infected with a mutated form of COVID-19 rise from graves after mass culling due to shallow mass graves usatoday.com/story/news/wor…

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen broke down on Thursday when visiting a mink farmer who lost his herd following the government's order this month to cull all 17 million mink in the country to curb the spread of coronavirus. de.reuters.com/article/us-hea…

In Wisconsin, about 3,400 farmed mink have died over the past month after contracting the virus. And in Utah, about 10,000 mink have died since August.  usatoday.com/story/news/nat…

Lithuania finds its first coronavirus cases in mink reuters.com/article/us-hea…

“Mink catch the virus from humans and pass it on to each other. Unlike dogs, cats and some other animals, which express only mild symptoms, if any, mink can sicken and die from an infection.” nytimes.com/article/mink-c…

“One of the mutations occurs on a part of the virus — the spike protein — that is targeted by many potential vaccines. In lab studies, cells with this variant of the virus were exposed to antibodies, which did not act as strongly as they had with other coronavirus variants.”

Escaped infected Danish mink could spread Covid in wild

Scientists fear fur farm animals in wild could create ‘lasting’ Covid reservoir that could then spread back to humans theguardian.com/environment/20…

An Oregon mink farm has a COVID-19 outbreak among animals and workers statesmanjournal.com/story/news/loc…

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Covid-19 Mutations in weasels, badgers, and ferrets may also pose risk to human health and vaccine development theguardian.com/environment/20…