COVID and Cats - new info

trailertraveler wrote:
Dogs got infected. Virus was found in their feces but not in their nasal passages.

Positive tests were obtained from nasal passage samples.

We should be very specific here. Most testing has been rt-PCR which identifies the presence of the RNA from the virus. This test does not assess for live virus; the virus is assumed to be alive. This same test is used to assess if the virus was present on surfaces; such as the report of surface contamination in cruse ships days to a week after the passengers were gone. Serological testing (looking for the body producing antibodies against the virus) and culturing (taking a sample and seeing if the virus can be grown from the sample in the lab) are the only ways to be 100% certain there was/is an infection due to this virus.

We must keep in mind the details of what these tests tell us when we are interpreting the results from these tests.

I think the full story on if pets can be infected (positive serological tests) is still being uncovered. I think we can say that the likelihood of them being infected is low but not zero.

Serological survey of SARS-CoV-2 for experimental, domestic, companion and wild animals excludes intermediate hosts of 35 different species of animals

First published: 17 April 2020|
https://doi.org/10.1111/tbed.13577

Abstract


The pandemic SARS-CoV-2 has been reported in 123 countries with more than 5000 patients died from it. However, the original and intermediate hosts of the virus remain unknown. In this study, 1914 serum samples from 35 animal species were used for detection SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies using double antigen sandwich ELISA after validating its specificity and sensitivity. The results showed that no SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies were detected in above samples which excluded the possibility of 35 animal species as intermediate host for SARS-CoV-2. More importantly, companion animals including pet dogs (including one dog the SARS-CoV-2 patient kept and two dogs which had close contact with it) and cats, street dogs and cats also showed serological negative to SARS-CoV-2, which relieved the public concerns for the pets as SARS-CoV-2 carriers.