Acme House of Cats

Acme House of Cats
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Cats and Covid

Posted by Pat B. on 1/12/2022, 7:58 am

So apparently cats are susceptible to Covid. Of course, there are not yet feline vaccinations for it, and any available treatments are in high demand and reserved for humans. Which makes me feel really helpless when it comes to my own cats.

They say if you have cats and you get Covid, you should minimize your contact with your cats. Try and have other members of the household care for them. That sort of thing. Which isn't particularly helpful advice for someone who lives alone. And I certainly wouldn't ask someone else to come into my home to care for my cats if I had an active case of Covid. Nor would I send potentially infected cats to a boarding facility.

With the omicron variant spreading like wildfire, more and more public health officials are saying that it's pretty much a certainty that sooner or later, almost everyone is going to get it. I'm very, very careful, but I hear that and it scares me.

This board is not very active these days. So I can't really rely on board members posting about this. So I'm asking those of you who DO come here: In your other contacts with cat owners, what have your heard about peoples' experiences? Do you know of any cat owners who have gotten Covid? How did their cats do? What kinds of help did they get from their veterinarians? How often do the cats become seriously ill vs. just a mild illness?

These are some of the kinds of questions I'm hoping to get real world answers to.

Anyone who has anything to share, please chime in.

Thanks!

I was reading that recently as well...

Posted by Ali's mom on 1/12/2022, 1:19 pm, in reply to "Cats and Covid"

I remember there was mention in the very early days of the pandemic about some domestic and big cats testing positive.

I believe that symptoms for cats are mild, if any, and that the minimizing contact was more the concern of the cats being carriers potentially transmitting the virus to unvaccinated people.

I also would like to hear discussion and any personal experiences. As highly contagious as the latest variant is, I would like to believe that if it was a major, serious concern for cats, there would have been a lot more news stories circulating.

That said, I speculated about the timing of what seemed like a dramatic increase in FIP in my and other local rescue groups beginning in 2019/2020, and especially since the off-label but highly successful treatment protocol was the same drug which got so much early attention for COVID treatment (remdesivir)

I posted to Barbara below . . .

Posted by Pat B. on 1/12/2022, 10:33 pm, in reply to "I was reading that recently as well..."

about Snow leopards at a couple of zoos dying from it. But that's a good point about us probably seeing it more in the news if a lot of peoples' cats were getting it.

That's interesting about the remdesivir. I hadn't realized it was used in veterinary settings.

That is a scary thought...msg

Posted by Barbara on 1/12/2022, 1:10 pm, in reply to "Cats and Covid"

I am also alone at the moment...what I can say is hubby got covid when it first came out, he has two cats with him and the fared well...he had it about the time Chris Cuomo of CNN was sick, so omicron variant was not around...I would think if you are fully vaxxed and get it, your case would be pretty mild, I would suggest facial covering around them, maybe not let them sleep with you (yeah, right?). When virus first came out, tigers at the zoo were catching it, but seemed to get over it on their own...let us know what you hear.

Snow leopards are apparently susceptible

Posted by Pat B. on 1/12/2022, 10:30 pm, in reply to "That is a scary thought...msg"

One just died at a zoo in Bloomington, Illinois. And three died at the Lincoln Children's Zoo in Nebraska, while infected Sumatran tigers at the same zoo recovered.

But as Ali's Mom said, if there were a lot of domestic cats affected, we'd probably be seeing a lot more about it in the news. I haven't seen much, and I'm something of a "news junkie".

Link: Snow leopard at Illinois zoo dies after contracting Covid-19

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