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Covid 19 mutation in mink

The Atheist said:
I'd like to know on what basis you think that, because as far as I'm aware we've never had a pandemic coronavirus like this in the past, and this particular virus seems to infect an extraordinary number of animals. Cats and dogs get it, but they seem to be a poor reservoir, because there aren't more than 1 or 2 cases where the pet is believed to have infected a human.

Now we know mustelids get it, and are giving it to humans, so the chances of it surviving in a wild population must be very high if the virus gets into one, and since it can be transmitted by fomite, the chances of wild animals infecting humans is also pretty high.

There are probably 100 million+ people with Covid right now, passing it on in all directions. Seems to me the odds are overwhelmingly that if there wasn't an animal reservoir for this disease, there will be now.
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I mean that the possibility should have been recognised and have been a major reason for not letting the virus run free the way so many countries thought they could handle it in the first instance and some still think that. Even places that are locking down are doing this to ease pressure on hospitals or even save human lives, very commendable, but the urgency to eliminate the virus before something like this happened wasn't there and it should have been. The point being this couldn't happen in NZ or the other countries that have eliminated community transmission.

I think there's still time to stomp on this strain if they take it seriously enough but on past performance I'm not convinced they will.
 
The Atheist said:
I'd like to know on what basis you think that, because as far as I'm aware we've never had a pandemic coronavirus like this in the past, and this particular virus seems to infect an extraordinary number of animals. Cats and dogs get it, but they seem to be a poor reservoir, because there aren't more than 1 or 2 cases where the pet is believed to have infected a human.
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Actually, there have been suggestions recently that the 1889-90 “Russian flu” pandemic was caused by a coronavirus, and cows may have been a reservoir for it. In another article, it was suggested that this coronavirus is one of the four or five that circulate causing colds now, since most people are exposed to it as children.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/10/long-n10.html
 
zooterkin said:
Actually, there have been suggestions recently that the 1889-90 “Russian flu” pandemic was caused by a coronavirus, and cows may have been a reservoir for it. In another article, it was suggested that this coronavirus is one of the four or five that circulate causing colds now, since most people are exposed to it as children.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/10/long-n10.html
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Fascinating stuff. Could well be right, but I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

Given we've had SARS (bats & civets), MERS (camels) and now Covid (mink &....), all with animal reservoirs, it's not much of a stretch to think cows could have caused it. We know for sure cows carry a couple of terrible zoonoses.
 
Unfortunately, as you may have seen already, we won't have to live without mink coats. The mink industry is simply moving to China. (DR.dk, Nov. 12, 2020)
But I guess we can rest assured that the Chinese won't let any coronavirus mutations evolve and become zoonotic ...
 
From the Sweden thread:
dann said:
The whole world is shocked by the Danish mink with the mutated coronavirus. Is there a risk that a new and uncontrollable infection is spreading? In Sweden, three more farms have been infected and the mink question is now creating a rift in the government.
The fear of mutated virus in mink is growing in Sweden. Professor: ”A new pandemic in the middle of the pandemic cannot be allowed to happen.”
The fear of mutated mink virus is growing in Sverige
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MRC_Hans said:
Well, this is incredibly hard on the people who have their life-work destroyed, but as a world, we can live without mink-coats.

Hans
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Agreed. I will say that at least in the past the bodies used to get used in anatomy classes- This is what I used in my comparative vertebrate anatomy class - and it was handy in that you didn't have to skin them to get started on looking a muscular anatomy. Interestingly, we also used mink skeletons as our mammalian example, with the exception of the skull. If you do a google image search on mink skulls, you'll see why...
 
Further complications:
Pelseri-formand: - 80 testet positive
Svend Pedersen er formand for Sydvestjysk Pelscenter, der har 180 ansatte.
Han bekræfter, at en række af hans medarbejdere er testet positiv.
Han stiller sig dog skeptisk over for testresultaterne.
- 80 er testet positiv, men heriblandt er der også folk, der aldrig er blevet testet. Jeg har kendskab til mindst en, hvor det er tilfældet, siger Svend Pedersen.
Ifølge ham er testresultaterne ikke til at regne med, og derfor er der blevet foretaget omtests af flere af de ansatte.
Pelscenter Vestjylland beliggende i Lemvig bekræfter over for TV 2, at 25 ud af 50 ansatte her er smittet med coronavirus.
200 ansatte smittet med corona på minkpelserier på en uge (TV2.dk, Nov. 17, 2020)
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Furrier chief: - 80 tested positive
Svend Pedersen I the head of Southwest Jutland Furrier Center, which has a staff of 180.
However, he doubts the results.
- 80 have been tested positive, but among those there are alos people who were never tested. I know of at least one where that is the case, says Svend Pedersen.
According to him, the test results are not reliable, so they have retested several of the employees.
The West Jutland Furrier Center in Lemvig confirms to TV2 that 25 of 50 employees are infected with coronavirus.
200 employees infected with corona in a week

Something about this story doesn't sound right to me.
I suspect that some mink farmers have tried to avoid the culling and destruction of their diseased mink and instead have taken them to the furrier centers where the workers have then become infected.

By the way, the whole mink trade seems to have been in financial troubles even before the pandemic:
Minkbranchen er i knæ - men det var den også inden coronaepidemien (DR.dk, Nov. 18, 2020)
 
Louden Wilde said:
Agreed. I will say that at least in the past the bodies used to get used in anatomy classes- This is what I used in my comparative vertebrate anatomy class - and it was handy in that you didn't have to skin them to get started on looking a muscular anatomy. Interestingly, we also used mink skeletons as our mammalian example, with the exception of the skull. If you do a google image search on mink skulls, you'll see why...
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Uh? They look exactly as I had expected from a small and rather vicious predator.

Hans
 
dann said:
*snip*
By the way, the whole mink trade seems to have been in financial troubles even before the pandemic:
Minkbranchen er i knæ - men det var den også inden coronaepidemien (DR.dk, Nov. 18, 2020)
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To elaborate a bit on this: From being a booming industry during China's economical boom some years ago (mink fur was all the rage among newly-rich Chinese), it has suffered a steady decline in market prices, but the tide had just seemed to start changing when this happened.

Rarely has the caption about the light at the end of the tunnel turning out to be an oncoming train been more apt.

This situation makes figuring out the compensations to the mink farmers rather complicated.

Hans
 
dann said:
The minister of food has resigned in the case of the coronavirus infected mink:
Blå blok er ikke tilfreds - kræver Mette Frederiksens afgang (TV2.dk, Nov. 18, 2020)
The blue parties are not satisfied - demand that Mette Frederiksen resigns
In Denmark, the blue parties are conservatives and right-wing parties
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The trouble is that the order to cull was given prematurely. "Somebody" forgot to see if the legislation was in place. Seems the minister of food has been appointed to take the rap for the team, but of course part of the current opposition love to point out that it happened on the prime minister's watch.

My guess is that she'll survive, though. ... If only because the current situation is not one people are lining up to get in front of.

Also, few politicians really contest that the culling was necessary, so the bitching is about procedures. And there's a limit to how many political points you can score on that.

Hans
 
dann said:
Me neither. I also tried googling mink skulls but found nothing mink skulls being unusual.
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It's subtle if you're not used to looking at skulls. Look for the sutures - say the ones that separate the frontal and parietal bones


The bones are fused so completely you can't see the sutures- hence not a good teaching tool
 
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MRC_Hans said:
Also, few politicians really contest that the culling was necessary, so the bitching is about procedures. And there's a limit to how many political points you can score on that.
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I think there is a lot of political gold that can be mined here. The would-be opposition leader is trying to make it a case of tyrannical dictatorship vs. benign leadership, which he will represent if the voters vote him in at the next election.
 
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