Covid-19 seems to have discovered a new species in which it can easily replicate and propagate. According to a preliminary study published this week, the virus is currently widely circulating among wild deer. Though the significance of this finding is unknown, it is likely that it will have an impact on our own future with the virus.
Coronaviruses are recognized for their capacity of infecting a large number of species, which made them top suspects for producing a pandemic even before the arrival of covid-19. While the exact cause of the pandemic is still unknown, it’s obvious that SARS-CoV-2 quickly established itself in animals other than humans. The virus has been found in dogs, weasels, cats, and even other primates such as gorillas, as well as deer.
People have been identified as the original cause of transmission in the majority of these recorded animal epidemics. The virus has also been demonstrated to pass from one species to another, most notably among weasels. Usually, these have been isolated events, like at zoos, where an employee may infect some animals before the transmission chain breaks. This latest study, which was published as a preprint paper on Biorxiv, reveals that the virus has spread throughout at least some groups of white-tailed deer in the United States.
“Our results suggest that deer have the potential to emerge as a major reservoir host for SARS-CoV-2, a finding that has important implications for the virus genomic diversity and future trajectory of the pandemic,”wrote the authors .
On an evolutionary level, viruses with only one primary host are simpler to track and anticipate, as they argue in the study. A virus that leaps between species, on the other hand, can pick up a wider range of alterations as it adapts, some of which could make the virus more likely to circumvent preexisting immunity or cause significant sickness. A more widely distributed SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to mix with other coronavirus species, resulting in unfortunate genetic jumbles.
