If the animal isn’t a common pet or an endangered zoo animal, there’s less outrage when it’s killed. Plus, people don’t have the close attachment to minks they might dogs.

“When you’ve got a disease that is killing lots of people, there is less willingness to be lax with the animal side,” he said. Culling is often the answer when data on animal spread is inconclusive.

“We want to keep this a human virus,” Weese said. If farms with outbreaks were isolated, it’s not known whether the virus would circulate through all the minks and eventually die out. Part of the problem, he explained, is that we don’t know the effects of the spread. “The easiest way to get rid of a problem is to get rid of the problem,” Weese said, “but that’s not always the best way.” Those conditions might be ideal for shoving the small mammals into metal machines that skin them for fancy coats and hats, but they also can be breeding grounds for the coronavirus. Runstadler, who studies emerging diseases in animals, said the outbreak in minks hasn’t surprised many in his field, in part because of the conditions in which they live.Īt fur farms, minks are densely packed in conditions ripe for close contact with one another. “That would lead one to think that the virus has retained the capability of replication and infection in other animal hosts as well.” We know Covid-19 came from an animal host, and spilled into humans recently, said Jonathan Runstadler, professor in the department of infectious disease and global health at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix via Reuters file Why are minks getting Covid-19 in the first place? Mink are seen at the farm of Henrik Nordgaard Hansen and Ann-Mona Kulsoe Larsen near Naestved, Denmark on Nov.

Big tank battle at minks