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Omicron-infected deer put scientists on high alert for spillover of new variants to humans
Aria Bendix
Feb 8, 2022, 7:02 PM
A white-tailed deer in Pineland Park, Pennsylvania, on November 2, 2021.
Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty Images
Vaughn Cooper sees white-tailed deer every day in his neighborhood outside Pittsburgh.
The species is common in most US states. Pennsylvania alone has around 1.5 million white-tailed deer — about 30 per square mile — while the US has around 30 million in total.
"My dog goes ripping after the deer every morning," Cooper, the director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, told Insider.
Interactions between humans and deer — or deer and other animals — are a pressing concern among scientists, since the coronavirus now appears widespread in the US white-tailed deer population.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University identified nearly 20 white-tailed deer in Staten Island, New York, that were infected with the Omicron variant between December 2021 and January 2022. Their findings, which haven't been peer reviewed, mark the first report of Omicron spilling over to wild animals. A spillover event occurs when a highly-infected population passes the virus to another species that hasn't encountered it (or that a particular variant) before.
The US Department of Agriculture has detected coronavirus infections among white-tailed deer in 15 states, a USDA spokesperson told The New York Times on Monday. In a study published last year, Penn State researchers identified the coronavirus in about one-third of white-tailed deer sampled in Iowa between September 2020 and January 2021. Another research group found the virus in one-third of sampled deer in Ohio from January to March 2021.
"We were not expecting to find this level of widespread infection," Suresh Kuchipudi, associate director of the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Penn State, told Insider. "It was quite surprising, and also quite concerning."
Scientists worry that deer could serve as a reservoir for the coronavirus, even after COVID-19 becomes endemic in humans. In the worst-case scenario, the virus might evolve in deer to become better at evading vaccine protection, then spill over into humans as a more lethal variant.
But such a phenomenon would be unprecedented, Cooper said. Most people in the US have some protection against the virus from vaccines or natural infection, making it tough for a new variant to override our existing immune defenses.
"Could deer become a host that gives rise to successful lineages in humans? I still think it's unlikely," Cooper said, adding, "We're actually becoming a harder population to invade because the leading virus is so prevalent."
Scientists have detected the virus in cats, dogs, ferrets, mink, pigs, and rabbits. But they're paying close attention to white-tailed deer for a few reasons: In addition to being highly vulnerable to infection, white-tailed deer are abundant in the US and live in close proximity to humans.
Here is the pre-print study:
HOME SCIENCE
Omicron-infected deer put scientists on high alert for spillover of new variants to humans
Aria Bendix
Feb 8, 2022, 7:02 PM
A white-tailed deer in Pineland Park, Pennsylvania, on November 2, 2021.
Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty Images
- Nearly 20 white-tailed deer in New York were infected with Omicron this winter, research suggests.
- The virus seems widespread among US deer, raising concerns about the spillover of new variants.
- For now, scientists are hopeful that deer won't pass the coronavirus to humans.
Vaughn Cooper sees white-tailed deer every day in his neighborhood outside Pittsburgh.
The species is common in most US states. Pennsylvania alone has around 1.5 million white-tailed deer — about 30 per square mile — while the US has around 30 million in total.
"My dog goes ripping after the deer every morning," Cooper, the director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, told Insider.
Interactions between humans and deer — or deer and other animals — are a pressing concern among scientists, since the coronavirus now appears widespread in the US white-tailed deer population.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University identified nearly 20 white-tailed deer in Staten Island, New York, that were infected with the Omicron variant between December 2021 and January 2022. Their findings, which haven't been peer reviewed, mark the first report of Omicron spilling over to wild animals. A spillover event occurs when a highly-infected population passes the virus to another species that hasn't encountered it (or that a particular variant) before.
The US Department of Agriculture has detected coronavirus infections among white-tailed deer in 15 states, a USDA spokesperson told The New York Times on Monday. In a study published last year, Penn State researchers identified the coronavirus in about one-third of white-tailed deer sampled in Iowa between September 2020 and January 2021. Another research group found the virus in one-third of sampled deer in Ohio from January to March 2021.
"We were not expecting to find this level of widespread infection," Suresh Kuchipudi, associate director of the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Penn State, told Insider. "It was quite surprising, and also quite concerning."
Scientists worry that deer could serve as a reservoir for the coronavirus, even after COVID-19 becomes endemic in humans. In the worst-case scenario, the virus might evolve in deer to become better at evading vaccine protection, then spill over into humans as a more lethal variant.
But such a phenomenon would be unprecedented, Cooper said. Most people in the US have some protection against the virus from vaccines or natural infection, making it tough for a new variant to override our existing immune defenses.
"Could deer become a host that gives rise to successful lineages in humans? I still think it's unlikely," Cooper said, adding, "We're actually becoming a harder population to invade because the leading virus is so prevalent."
.....
Scientists have detected the virus in cats, dogs, ferrets, mink, pigs, and rabbits. But they're paying close attention to white-tailed deer for a few reasons: In addition to being highly vulnerable to infection, white-tailed deer are abundant in the US and live in close proximity to humans.
Here is the pre-print study:
