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Sunday, April 12, 2020

New Research (April 2020) - Cats are far more susceptible to new coronavirus than dogs are, but people shouldn't be 'fearful' of their pets: study

Title:
Cats are far more susceptible to new coronavirus than dogs are, but people shouldn't be 'fearful' of their pets: study

Author:
Mark Johnson

Published:
Medical Xpress, 10 April 2020

From the article:
"A Chinese study published Wednesday in the journal Science reported that tests of the new coronavirus on domesticated cats, dogs, pigs, chickens, ducks and ferrets found that both cats and ferrets are highly susceptible to the virus. Cats can become infected through airborne transmission. Dogs, however, have a very low susceptibility to the virus.  

Susceptibility means that a virus is able to enter a cell.  

Specialists in veterinary medicine stressed that the study included very small numbers of cats and dogs, which were injected with much higher levels of the new coronavirus than they would likely encounter in the natural world. They also said it is highly unlikely that a person would become infected from a pet."

To read this article:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-cats-susceptible-coronavirus-dogs-people.html

Original scholarly article:
Shi, J. [et al.]. (2020). Susceptibility of ferrets, cats, dogs, and other domesticated animals to SARS–coronavirus 2. Science
DOI: 10.1126/science.abb7015