White-tail Deer Herds Have Caught Covid

As much as 40 percent of White-tail Deer have caught Covid-19.  It appears to have come from humans, they do not seem to die from it, and they develop antibodies.

One-third of white-tailed deer in the north-eastern United States have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 — a sign that they have been infected with the virus. The findings, revealed by an analysis of samples collected after the pandemic began, represent the first detection of widespread exposure to the virus in a population of wild animals, says Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. The results are reported in a preprint posted on bioRxiv on 29 July1. They have not yet been peer reviewed. Researchers say the rapid exposure of a large number of animals to the virus is concerning, but that more studies are needed to assess whether the deer can infect each other — and other species — in the wild. “It’s an intriguing observation but still needs to be interpreted with caution,” says Aaron Irving, an infectious-diseases researcher at Zhejiang University in Haining, China.