How many animal species have caught COVID? First global tracker has (partial) answers
Just as human counts are incomplete, so are animal counts. But the first worldwide compilation of animal cases is a start at understanding the extent of human-to-animal transmission, scientists say.
Mink get it. Hamsters get it. Cats and dogs get it.
They're a few of the many animal species to have contracted COVID-19.
But how many species have been affected? And how many cases have there been in the animal kingdom?
Those are difficult questions to answer – just as it's hard to come up with an accurate total for human cases, since many people don't report a positive test to health authorities. Yet it's an important task, say researchers, because of the possibility that the virus could mutate into a perhaps more transmissible or virulent strain in animals and then pass
