Update (November 14): The preprint described in this article has now been published as a paper in Nature Microbiology.
Update (March 22): A study published yesterday in PLOS Pathogens finds that experimentally infected white-tailed deer can shed infectious SARS-CoV-2 for five days after inoculation.
A study carried out in southwestern Ontario has identified a highly mutated variant of SARS-CoV-2 in local populations of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and found evidence that it might have infected a person in the area. This so-called Ontario WTD lineage, described in a preprint last week (February 25), is unlikely to present a risk to people, according to The Guardian and other news outlets, but underlines the need for better surveillance of wildlife that may act as reservoirs for the virus.
“There’s certainly no need to panic,” Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan who was not involved in the study, tells The ...
