• Question: Why and how do Animals Get COVID? And what do animals do if they do get covid?

    Asked by GeorgeIsCool on 10 Feb 2022.
    • Photo: Valerie Vancollie

      Valerie Vancollie answered on 10 Feb 2022:

      Some animals get covid as they have the same receptors on the outside of their cells that we do. Those receptors are like locks on a door, for which the virus just so happens to have the key that allows them in. If an animal species doesn’t have these receptors, then they can’t get Covid, if they do, then they can.

      However, just because an species can catch the virus doesn’t mean that they will react the same way that people do. So what the animals would do will depend on whether or not they actually get sick. Bats, for instance, get a lot of coronaviruses but never actually get ill from them, so they don’t really do anything different from normal.

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