New Yorkers, not great news regarding your Rodent Overlords:
"We evaluated SARS-CoV-2 exposure among 79 rats captured from NYC during the fall of 2021. Our results showed that 13 of the 79 rats (16.5%) tested IgG- or IgM-positive, and partial SARS-CoV-2 genomes were recovered from all 4 rats that were qRT-PCR (reverse transcription-quantitative PCR)-positive."
#COVID #Zoonosis #Covid19 #spillover
cc @n8_upham
Uh oh, didn't know that rats are SARS-CoV2 susceptible. Where would be the threshold where we need to start monitoring laboratory rats for SARS-CoV2 viral load as well (and treat infected rats as potential infection source for the humans working with them)?
@moritz_negwer @cyrilpedia Yeah wow, Rattus now too -- such a labile virus. Each species it spills into will be a different selective environment, but likely most of them will weaken the virus relative to human immune systems if spillback were to occur. The question is which wild mammals might actually select for more problematic variants... We need to know a lot more comparative immunology to predict that!
