Can animals infected with COVID-19 virus infect other animals? Why didn't animals explode?

Although the epidemic situation in China has been effectively alleviated, it is at its peak abroad, and there are constant media reports that animals are infected with COVID-19, including not only dogs and cats, but also tigers in zoos. Pangolin is even suspected to be the intermediate host of COVID-19.

In other words, COVID-19 can be infected not only with human virus, but also with many animals, some of which will get sick.

In nature, if animals get sick because of viruses, their body functions will decline, and they are more likely to be preyed by natural enemies, or they will die because they can't get enough energy.

Then, when the animals carrying COVID-19 die, will the virus on them spread to humans again through the food chain?

Animals that carry viruses and die.

According to the information known at present, animals infected with COVID-19 virus have two characteristics: one is to carry it, but it does not get sick itself; The other is carrying and getting sick, for example, tigers show the same cough behavior as humans.

Of course, due to the lack of known information, it is not clear how other animals react after being infected with COVID-19.

The first virus carries itself but does not get sick. They can be divided into two categories. A person can live in harmony with the virus for a long time, and can also infect other animals. For example: bats, bats carry more than 100 viruses, but bats have strong immunity and can live in harmony with many viruses for a long time. But bats can infect other animals by feeding and biting, and that's how rabies virus comes from.

There is also a virus that carries itself, but it cannot infect other organisms. In this case, as long as the virus does not mutate, basically the virus will not have any impact on other organisms.

The second situation is that the organism carrying the virus gets sick. After they are infected with the virus, their physical functions will decline, such as speed and sensitivity, and eventually they will die. Because the corpse still contains a lot of viruses, if other animals come into contact with the corpse at this time, it may also cause the body to be infected with the virus.

But scavengers can often clean up the virus in the body and cut off the source of infection.

We know that there is gastric acid in animals, but the intensity of gastric acid in different organisms is different. Among them, herbivores have the lowest gastric acid, which is almost neutral, so they can live in a large number of microorganisms, which can help them decompose indigestible cellulose.

The stomach acid of carnivores is the second, and the stomach acid in their bodies can kill microorganisms in meat; The strongest gastric acid is scavenger, and its acidic PH value is about 1-2, which is equivalent to household toilet cleaner.

In addition, scavengers have a large number of virus antibodies, toxin antibodies and a strong immune system, so scavengers will not get sick even if they eat carrion.

When the animal carrying the virus dies, the scavengers will eat the rotten meat in the stomach, and then the gastric acid and immune system will kill some viruses and expel the feces carrying a small amount of viruses, and the viruses in these feces will be killed by ultraviolet rays and other reasons, and rarely spread to other animals.

If a creature dies on land but is buried at sea, the scavengers in the ocean will also destroy the virus in the organism and will not enter the next food chain, thus ensuring the safety of life on earth.

The spread of the virus

In general, viruses can only infect a few organisms. For example, viruses that can infect humans may not necessarily infect chickens, because there is a species barrier.

We know that the genes in different organisms are different, and the farther the genetic relationship, the greater the genetic differentiation. And viruses pass through the cell surface when they infect organisms? Receptor protein? Enter the cell, but the receptor protein of different organisms is not necessarily the same.

COVID-19's disease is caused by human ACE2 receptor, but other animals may not have ACE2 receptor, so this creature will not get sick even if it comes into contact with COVID-19.

But the virus will mutate, and mutate quickly, which may cause it to break through the barrier between species and infect another organism. For example, HIV originated from SIV in monkeys, and after genetic mutation, it became HIV that could infect humans, thus causing human diseases.

However, generally speaking, the farther the biological relationship is, the more difficult it is for the virus to infect. For example, diseases that can infect plants rarely infect humans; Viruses from fish rarely infect humans.

On the contrary, the closer the kinship, the easier it is to be infected. For example, sars virus, mers virus, COVID-19 virus and rabies virus are all spread by mammals closely related to human beings.

Therefore, for the sake of human health, we should put an end to eating wild animals without safety quarantine, especially wild mammals.

abstract

Scavengers in nature? Sweeper? It is because of their existence that there are no frequent outbreaks of epidemics in nature, thus ensuring the health of most living things.