I forgot to post about the updated decision tree for owner/patient screening in vet clinics. It’s an updated version of the document we prepared earlier to help identify and manage higher risk situations. The pdf version is available here.
We also have a Russian translation courtesy of Dr. Varvara Solovyeva. It’s downloadable here.
Disclaimer #1 is my standard “COVID-19 is almost exclusively a human disease. Information about this virus in animals is important to investigate and consider, but don’t over-react.”
Disclaimer #2 is that this post is about another paper that’s available as a pre-print, meaning it hasn’t yet undergone peer review. However, it provides some useful
I think most people agree that the best thing we can do with pets of people with COVID-19 is to keep them in the home with the owner. However, what do we do with someone’s pet if they have to be admitted to the hospital and they live alone? Someone needs to take care of
We’ll soon reach the time when I won’t bother reporting on every new instance of SARS-CoV-2 infection in an animal in contact with an infected person, but at this stage a little more discussion is probably still warranted. As part of Hong Kong’s One Health approach to COVID-19 (one that is sadly very rare), they
Hot on the heels of the experimental study of SARS-CoV-2 in ferrets that I discussed a couple days ago is another new study, available in pre-print, that looked at susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 in a slightly wider range of animals, including ferrets, cats, dogs, pigs and poultry (Shi et al. 2020). Bear in mind that
A cat in Belgium, owned by a person with COVID-19, has tested positive for the virus. The cat developed diarrhea, vomiting and respiratory difficulty about 1 week after the owner got sick, and SARS-CoV-2 was found in the cat’s feces. It’s not clear whether the test used was PCR (which can detected live or dead
Une traduction française de notre document récent, La médecine vétérinaire en période de restriction des services électifs et de distanciation sociale, est maintenant disponible. Traduit par Dre Nathalie Therrien, MV (merci beaucoup!).
For the English version, please see our previous post on veterinary medicine, essential services and social distancing.
I’ve written a lot about COVID-19 issues in veterinary medicine, but most of that material has focused on brick-and-mortar practices. There are lots of mobile veterinarians out there too, and they have different challenges with COVID-19. Small animal mobile veterinarians are at increased risk of exposure because they go into households where they can’t use
It’s still an evolving area with many unknowns, so definitive statements about COVID-19 and animals are often lacking. We realize we might change some recommendations as we continue to regularly re-assess the evidence. Nonetheless, here’s the most recent information for the public on COVID-19 and animals from the Government of Canada (specifically the Canadian Food
It’s truly amazing how much we know about COVID-19 and the virus that causes it (SARS-CoV-2), considering it was only identified a few months ago. However, there are still lots of basic things we don’t understand (yet).
One important question is whether the environment is a significant source of infection. When people breathe, cough, talk
