I’ve taken a look back at some posts from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, to see how my thoughts have evolved, what I got right and what I screwed up. We have a lot of COVID-19 posts (starting from when we called it “novel coronavirus” or “Wuhan coronavirus” before the SARS-CoV-2 terminology existed). Here are some highlights and “grading” of my comments from a selection of posts

January 20, 2020 “New coronavirus: Companion animal concerns?”: Very early on I said While this virus still seems to be less transmissible and less virulent than its relative, the SARS coronavirus, it’s pretty early to have a lot of confidence in that.

• Grade B: It turns out SARS-CoV-2 is not less transmissible than the first SARS virus, but I guess I covered myself by saying it was early to have much confidence.

For containment measures for SARS, this new coronavirus or any other new disease, we need to assume that multiple species can be affected until proven otherwise, and we need to act accordingly. That doesn’t necessarily need to be complex. It might just be making sure animal contact questions are asked along with human contact questions, that quarantine protocols consider what to do with exposed animals, and that quarantined individuals are kept away from animals. 

• Grade A: This turned out to be a fairly accurate statement, but fortunately risks from animals seem to be pretty limited (let’s hope this statement holds up). This is also around the time I sent some (essentially ignored) emails to try to get some consideration of animal aspects in any human exposure response planning here in Ontario.

January 23, 2020 “Novel coronavirus in China… Hold off on blaming snakes”:  In a post talking about how snakes might be the source of SARS-CoV-2, I wasn’t convinced and said I’m sure we’ll see much more genetic analysis of this virus by many different groups, but I suspect it will keep coming back to bats as the source. 

• Grade A:  A final answer is still needed but this seems correct.

February 5, 2020 “Novel coronavirus and animals”: In talking about whether there’s actually a problem with companion animals, I said we need to focus on ensuring exposed animals are quarantined, using good old fashioned infection control like hand washing, keeping fear at bay and applying logic to the problem.

• Grade B+: I’ll dock myself some marks on this one since it was focused on dogs. To be fair, the post was about concerns regarding over-reaction and euthanasia or abandonment of dogs, but it didn’t get into the bigger risks we now know are present with other species.

February 14, 2020 “More on COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) in animals”: I said We still have no evidence that this virus affects domestic animals, but since we also still have no real evidence that it doesn’t, it’s best to continue to take reasonable precautions to reduce the risk of exposure of animals to infected people, and to properly manage pets of people who are infected. “

• Grade A+: Especially since it was at the same time groups like the US CDC were actively pushing back against there being any risk to/from animals.

February 18, 2020 “COVID-19 and potential animal hosts”: This post talked about a study that predicts species susceptibility based on ACE2 receptors. The potential susceptibility of cats is obviously a concern given their commonness as pets and the close interaction many people have with their cats. Pigs could be an even worse issue. If pigs could be infected and shed the virus, and it got into the commercial pig population, it would potentially be an even worse issue.  As with SARS, mice and rats are likely resistant to infection – that’s good from the standpoint of them not being reservoirs in the wild, but it also means they can’t be used for experimental study (as these are the most common lab animal species).

• Grade C+: I think I over-estimated how useful these studies would be. They were interesting, but some species predicted to be high risk (e.g. pigs) aren’t, and some that were predicted to be lower risk (e.g. cat) most certainly as susceptible to SARS-CoV-2.  I also missed a couple of points. It seems like infection of pigs isn’t a concern but I think I missed some of the main potential concerns, as I wasn’t thinking about them as sources of virus mutants or wildlife exposure.

February 28, 2020 “COVID-19 in a dog”: A post about the first SARS-CoV-2 positive dog: Overall, my concerns are still more about cats. Dogs will probably get investigated more because there are more pet dogs than cats in most regions, and people tend to seek healthcare for the dogs (or alternative caretakers if the owner is indisposed due to illness) quicker than for their cats. 

• Grade A: That turned out to be true.

March 27, 2020 “Human-to-cat COVID-19 transmission: Belgium”: I said If you’re worried about getting COVID-19, worry about your human contacts, not your pets. Keep pets away from high risk people, but otherwise, your risk is from exposure to people, not your pet

• Grade A: I haven’t really changed that line in the past year.

March 29, 2020 “Social distancing WITHIN veterinary clinics”: I said Masks can reduce the risk of transmission if someone is unknowingly shedding the virus . Masks aren’t perfect but there can be some benefit. Whether it’s a good use of masks is questionable. Putting on masks for occasional close contact procedures (and ideally reusing that mask for the whole shift) isn’t unreasonable, but whether it’s really worth the mask use is hard to say.

• Grade D: My line on masking was influenced by influenza data and concerns about mask availability, and I underestimated the usefulness of routine masking. I also focused on it being needed for known close contact situations, not more broadly. Those were the standard recommendations at that time but I still get a “D” for this one.

March 30, 2020 “COVID-19 and ferrets”: Here, I discussed concerns about ferrets.

• Grade C:  We haven’t seen much SARS-CoV-2 activity in ferrets. Maybe that’s just because they aren’t common pets and don’t get taken to a veterinarian as often. Where I missed the boat was thinking about related species. Mink were not on my radar at all… (see below.)

April 24, 2020 “Pets and COVID-19 fears”: A commentary sent in partnership with the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association to veterinarians to balance awareness and paranoia when talking to pet owners about SARS-CoV-2.

• Grade A: I’m not sure I’d change anything a year later.

April 26, 2020 “COVID-19 in mink: The Netherlands”: I said We’ll put this in the “interesting but not really surprising” file.

• Grade C-: Fair statement, but while I talked about the concerns, I don’t think I really appreciated how susceptible mink would be and the issues that would develop from that.

April 28, 2020 “COVID-19 modelling and the impact of releasing cats”: This was a commentary about a crap-tastic paper about releasing infected cats and the potential impact on virus tranmission. Little did I realize this was one of many future “studies” based on little substance, little common sense and a complete abandonment of any principles of peer review. Academic opportunism has abounded in the past year and a bit, with some people putting out utterly useless papers, reviews and commentaries, and sometimes causing harm.

• No grade… just a rant.

May 28, 2020 “Veterinary clinic staff cohorting”: I said One concept that we’ve recommended for COVID-19 control in veterinary clinics is staff cohorting.

• Grade D: This turned out to be too impractical in most situations. It might have been useful if this was a short lived problem, but obviously that hasn’t been the case. I dropped this idea pretty quickly.

In the same post Routine cloth mask use whenever a 6-foot gap can’t be maintained between people is emerging as a key infection control tool. Cloth masks are far from perfect, but they can do a good job containing most infectious droplets, which are probably the main source of exposure.

• Grade C: We now know the focus on the 6-foot distancing as a risk/no risk cutoff isn’t valid. Emphasizing mask use was good, but focusing on known close contact situations wasn’t.

I’d give a higher grade for the rest of the post. Most of it was actually pretty good, but these are some glaring issues.

I’ll pause here to avoid this post getting even longer. Overall, I think we had some pretty good thoughts about animals from the start. I missed the ball on a couple of key things:

• Importance of masking: I mentioned masking above, but I didn’t realize how much of a core lifestyle component this would be.
• Duration of the pandemic: I was expecting the pandemic to hit hard in the spring of 2020 based on modelling, so I wasn’t surprised at what we encountered then. However, I didn’t expect the pandemic to drag on this long. I was truly thinking we just needed to hit it hard in the spring of 2020 to return to normalcy in the fall or winter.