Study shows New York deer are lousy with old variants of COVID – lots of mutations

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic have been far-reaching, and this invigorating reality is further borne out by the latest high-transmission target of the virus: the deer population in New York City.

A new study by a team at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine published last month found that the virus is spreading rapidly among the state’s white-tailed deer. The researchers noted that what was most striking was that the SARS-CoV-2 variants found in the animals were old and had not circulated in humans for several months.

The prevalence of past variants that have engulfed deer in dozens of Empire State counties is raising new concerns about the mammalian carriers of viruses that have collectively killed millions and left many sick over the past couple of years.

More than 5,000 samples were collected from white-tailed deer during the hunting season (September to December) in 2020 and 2021 to gain insight into transmission trends. The 17 positive samples increased 35-fold in one year, increasing to 538 (21.1%) of all samples in 2021.

“The low positivity rate in the first season may be due to the fact that most samples in our study were collected before the peak of SARS-CoV-2 human cases in New York City, which occurred between December 2020 and February 2021.” , the researchers suggest. .

By the end of 2021, deer tested positive for several long-out-of-human variants in at least 48 of the state’s 62 counties.

“It is noteworthy that while the Alpha and Gamma variants were circulating in [white-tailed deer] in New York in November and December 2021, the discovery of these [variants of concern] the peak in humans was between April and June 2021, with only sporadic cases identified after August,” the group explained.

“While the pathways of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to VFDs remain largely unknown, human activities such as feeding wild animals or targeted hunting prey (e.g., UBD) may provide an opportunity for human-to-BDV transmission of the virus. virus.”

The researchers said the collected deer samples are “strongly at odds” with the virus sequences found in humans since the outbreak of the virus in early 2020. This sequence shift suggests a “rapid adaptation” of the COVID-19 virus, they said.

The mutation of the virus and its spread among deer has raised significant concerns for the Cornell team, including its potential future impact on humans, which remains unknown.

Those behind the study say more research is needed to examine the possibility of deer-to-human transmission and the likelihood of its risk. To their knowledge, there has only been one case reported (in Canada) where a person tested positive for a white-tailed deer-like variant.