Besides the large-scale unrest in Shanghai following the prolonged lockdown of millions of people, several video clips of pets of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus being killed by people wearing hazmat suits have gone viral in recent days. This is not the first time that China has killed companion pets of people with confirmed virus infection and even pets of people who were only contacts of people who tested positive. In September and November last year, there were reports of people in hazmat suits entering people's homes and killing their pets without the consent or knowledge of the owners who were in quarantine. With China still clinging on to the Zero COVID strategy, the local governments are taking no chances as there is a perceived fear that pet dogs and cats that are infected could lead to spread of the virus.
But the results of a small study carried out in Spain and posted in a preprint server medRxiv, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, has found that dogs and cats do not easily get infected by the Omicron variant. This despite the owners having had high contact with their pets and the sampling done at the “best time for the detection of the disease”. And even when they do get infected, the viral load is less and the shedding of viral RNA lasts for only a brief period. Even the pet dogs and cats that tested positive for Omicron did not show any symptoms. The authors note that there were slim chances of spread from dogs and cats to humans.
The study was carried out on 50 dogs, 28 cats, and one rabbit when the pet owners were in quarantine between December 15, 2021 and March 23, 2022. This period coincided with the highest prevalence of the Omicron variant in Spain. Of the 78 dogs and cats tested for the virus, only seven cats and one dog tested positive for the Omicron variant, which is 10.13% of the total number of pets tested.
