Getting The Message !

This Easter is shaping up as a non event.  Traditionally, it is a time to visit relatives in aged care but most are in strict lockdown and that is definitely off the agenda. Holiday travel is another casualty and those on the road in their cars car expect to be pulled over by the police and asked to justify their journey.

The religious aspect of Easter is also under pressure.  Church attendance surges at both Christmas and Easter but because of the Coronavirus this is being discouraged. This year it will be radio and television that brings the Easter message to people in their own homes.  It took a while for the  need for social isolation to sink in but the measure is now vividly apparent in the scarcity of people in public places and the trains still running half empty.

This Coronavirus burst on the world out of Wuhan, China, and it is not the first Pandemic to originate in the world's most populous country.  We remember when SARS was rampaging through the world and causing fatalities and like COVID-19 that also originated from animals.  In this latest case science has traced the transmission from bats to humans.

What is unclear is if this virus has the ability to be carried by the animals with which we have contact ?   There was an alarming incident in the United States where a tiger at the Bronx zoo came down with Coronavirus symptoms.  It was discovered that his keeper had close contact during the disease's infectious stage.  We await advice as to whether transmission from animal to human is also possible.

In this initial stage of the Coronavirus Pandemic science is suggesting that both cats and ferrets are susceptible to the disease. So far, dogs seem to have a natural immunity, along with chickens, pigs and ducks which have undergone the inoculation process.  It is thought that cats infect one another by way of respiratory droplets and as a species they are known to prowl their home territory on a regular basis.

The problem with new diseases is the time it takes to understand both their origin and all the means of their transmission.  We will eventually develop a vaccine but it is estimated that this could be still be a year away.  Perhaps a good reason to confine the family cat indoors and prevent it socialising with its neighbours.   It seems that isolation of the widest possible spectrum is required to combat COVID-19.