Malayan tigress tested positive for Covid-19

NEW YORK, 6 April 2020:

A tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York City has tested positive for Covid-19, the zoo said yesterday – in what could be the first known infection of the virus in an animal in the US.

Nadia, a 4-year-old Malayan tigress, is the only animal that has tested positive so far, although her sister Azul, two Amur tigers and three African lions have developed a persistent dry cough. All are expected to recover.

“Our cats were infected by a person caring for them who was asymptomatically infected with the virus or before that person developed symptoms,” the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo said in a statement.

The positive Covid-19 test for the tiger was confirmed by a National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. The zoo tested Nadia for Covid-19 “out of an abundance of caution”

“Though they have experienced some decrease in appetite, the cats at the Bronx Zoo are otherwise doing well under veterinary care and are bright, alert, and interactive with their keepers,” the statement said.

“It is not known how this disease will develop in big cats since different species can react differently to novel infections, but we will continue to monitor them closely and anticipate full recoveries.”

The zoo, closed since March 16 along with all non-essential activity in New York, said the four affected tigers live in the zoo’s Tiger Mountain exhibit and that no other animal has shown clinical symptoms of the virus.

“Appropriate preventive measures are now in place for all staff who are caring for them, and the other cats in our four WCS zoos, to prevent further exposure of any other of our zoo cats.”

“There is no evidence that animals play a role in the transmission of Covid-19 to people other than the initial event in the Wuhan (China, the epicentre of the outbreak) market, and no evidence that any person has been infected with Covid-19 in the US by animals, including by pet dogs or cats.”

In New York, the Covid-19 epicentre in the US, yesterday announced the novel coronavirus has caused 4,159 deaths and 122,031 infections in the state even as the country’s surgeon general said the coming week will be a “Pearl Harbor moment… our 9/11 moment” for the country.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who warned on Saturday the peak of the coronavirus epidemic in the state would come in the next seven days, announced the state’s outbreak may have already reached its apex – although he warned that instead of a reduction in deaths and cases, what could occur is a “plateau” with a high number of cases for a period of time.

“By the data we could be either very near the apex or the apex could be a plateau and we could be on that plateau right now. We won’t know until you see the next few days… does it go up, does it go down, but that’s what the statisticians will tell you today,” Cuomo said at his daily press briefing.

“You’re seeing the narrative unfold, right. We’re all watching a movie, we’re waiting to see what the next scene is, and as the movie unfolds you start to understand the story better and better.”

Cuomo said all hospitals and hospital networks, whether public or private, would need to start working together as one system in order to balance the patient load among all the medical institutions along with supplies and resources such as masks and gowns and asked federal authorities to do the same at the national level.

“You’re going to have to shift and deploy resources to different locations based on the need of that location.”

US surgeon general Jerome Adams warned: “The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, it’s going to be our 9/11 moment, it’s going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives. And we really need to understand that if we want to flatten that curve and get through to the other side, everyone needs to do their part.”

The number of confirmed cases in the US stands at over 318,000 and the death toll at 9,000.

New York has the highest number of infections, followed by New Jersey (34,124 infections and 459 847 deaths), Michigan (14,225 infections and 540 deaths), California (13,796 infections and 323 deaths) and Louisiana (12,496 infections and 412 deaths), according to Cuomo.

The coming week is “going to be shocking to some,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key official in President Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force.

“But that’s what is going to happen before it turns around, so just buckle down,” Fauci said, adding that the rate of increase of new cases will determine whether the US is seeing the epidemic plateau.

“We’ve seen that in Italy,” Fauci said, referring to an apex in the number of new cases followed by a decreasing number day by day, adding: “We’re going to hopefully be seeing that in New York very soon and that’s the first sign of that plateau and coming down.”

He also warned that, barring the quite unlikely scenario in which the disease is fully eradicated, “as we get into next season, we may see the beginning of a resurgence,” with the coronavirus taking on a seasonal aspect, much like the yearly flu, albeit far more deadly.

He also asserted one cannot say the US has the crisis “under control” at this time, but he said measures in place across most of the country – where more than 90% of the public has been instructed to remain at home and appear to be doing so – are clearly working.

Later in the day, president Donald Trump once again expressed his desire for the country to return to normal as soon as possible and spoke of a “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx said that the number of number of daily confirmed cases in Italy and Spain were giving the US, which, according to her, was about 12 days behind those countries, “hope for what our future could be.”

– EFE