Thread by @InfectiousDz

The longer we let COVID simmer, the longer it has to not just a) cause badness for us b) develop variants that spread and cause more badness but c) find an animal host that will make it a lot harder for it to go away

Some variants may do better in
ferrets (N501T) nature.com/articles/s4146…
and mink (N501T) academic.oup.com/ve/advance-art…
and mice (N501Y) science.sciencemag.org/content/369/65…
more here github.com/hodcroftlab/co…

We know COVID can also find a home in cats
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
and big cats bbc.com/news/world-eur…
newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/…

COVID can find a home in dogs pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32408337/

Most pets infected have been infected by their owners without forward transmission. Different circumstances, different mutant, perhaps they could also be a reservoir (strays, kennels)

SARS-CoV2 also finds its way to gorillas (even with a masked, distanced human contact) sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/c…
and monkeys nature.com/articles/s4159…

We know the history of SARS-CoV2 includes bats and even pangolins.

Early food market involvement raised questions of intermediary-human contacts associated with livestock, food animals. Experience with mink points to livestock propagation

At least pigs, chickens, and ducks - influenza's favorite animals - are not big targets for SARS-CoV2 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32269068/

But what this all means is that what we saw with mink may be replicated with other animals over time, animals we have less control over, have more contact with, or less surveillance over

It's possible this virus from human origins could find a home in another animal, another continent, making it that much harder to eradicate. Amazonas, Brazil, is facing a surge, there's no time to survey all the Amazonian animals for SARS-CoV2 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32315124/

The only reason we were able to stop smallpox after centuries of inoculation and vaccination is that it was only in human hosts (and was pretty easy to spot). It's really hard to put the genie back in the bottle if it finds a new niche.

Even as other countries become New Zealands and Vietnams, we run the risk of having COVID haunt us, like Ebola, popping up from time to time from its animal home.

https://twitter.com/sci_questions/status/1349831943844671488?s=20

from originally **animal origins

This by the way is all part of the concept of the One Health approach who.int/news-room/q-a-…
It would just be a lot easier if it didn't need to be