Two cats in New York are the first pets in the United States to contract COVID-19 as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
The sick felines are expected to make recoveries from their infections, which have presented as mild respiratory illnesses, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. The pets are believed to have become ill from human beings who had COVID-19, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The identity of the cats in question has not been revealed, nor has their location in New York, though officials said the two pets live in different areas of the state. The owner of one of the cats tested positive for COVID-19 before the cat, while the other owner had a respiratory illness about a week before the cat became sick.
The CDC is advising pet owners to avoid having their cats and dogs engage with other animals and people outside of the household. Despite that, CDC official Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh said animal owners should not be afraid that their family pet will infect them. She said that though the coronavirus can be spread to them, there has been no evidence that the illness can move from pets to humans.
“We don’t want people to panic. We don’t want people to be afraid of pets,” Behravesh explained. “There’s no evidence that pets are playing a role in spreading this disease to people.”
There have been reports of other animals across the globe contracting the coronavirus. In March, a cat in Belgium became the first feline to test positive, while in Hong Kong, a dog was placed into quarantine after testing positive for “low levels” of the contagion. Tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo have also become ill from the virus.
Worldwide there have been more than 2.6 million infections among humans and at least 181,200 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
