Fuzzy Hamsters Are Hong Kong’s Newest Enemy in Its Covid-Zero Campaign

jamesK_3rd · 2022-01-18T17:32:59+00:00

City is going to great lengths to eradicate emerging outbreaks following months of near-zero locally transmitted cases

A health worker walks past one of the Hong Kong pet shops that have closed following a Covid-19 outbreak.

Photo: Kin Cheung/Associated Press

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Updated Jan. 18, 2022 11:01 am ET

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HONG KONG—Authorities ordered some 2,000 hamsters in Hong Kong to be killed over concerns that the animals may have transmitted Covid-19 to humans, one of the city’s latest measures to try to stamp out a fresh outbreak.

Under the latest order, authorities will cull the animals at almost three dozen pet shops across the city, including a store selling small animals linked to two recent Covid-19 infections in the city. One of the two infections was an employee at the pet store, while another was a recent visitor to the store, authorities said.

Health chiefs said the order was being made out of prudence as there was no international evidence that pets can transmit the Covid-19 to humans.

Anyone who bought a hamster after Dec. 22 should also surrender the animals, authorities said, according to local media. Close contacts of the people infected face two weeks’ quarantine under the city’s strict quarantine rules.

The order showed the lengths Hong Kong is going to in order to eradicate emerging outbreaks of the Omicron and Delta variants following months of near-zero locally transmitted cases in the city. Clusters of cases are testing the limits of the city’s strict response to the disease, with more than 4,000 people ordered into quarantine related to locally transmitted or imported cases since the end of December.

A police officer stood outside a closed pet store in Hong Kong.

Photo: Kin Cheung/Associated Press

Hong Kong’s hamsters aren’t the first animal victims of aggressive Covid-control measures. In 2020, Denmark ordered its entire population of farmed mink eradicated after researchers discovered the animals harbored new mutations of the virus that could threaten the effectiveness of vaccines under development.

Earlier in the pandemic, Hong Kong detected infections in dogs and cats, but the animals were isolated and released when they recovered.

In May 2020, researchers at the University of Hong Kong’s medical school found that Covid-19 infections in a type of hamster called golden hamsters resembled those found in humans with mild symptoms. The study also found that infected hamsters could transmit the disease to other hamsters by direct contact or through the air.

The city’s hamster cull follows the infection confirmed earlier this week of a 23-year-old female employee of a pet shop called Little Boss in the city’s Causeway Bay district. The shop’s Facebook page showed that it sold mainly small animals such as hamsters and rabbits. Authorities on Tuesday said a 67-year-old woman who visited the shop on Jan. 8 also tested positive.

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“Although there is no international evidence that pets can transmit Covid-19 to humans, for the sake of prudence, we will also take some precautionary measures for any transmission routes that cannot be ruled out, because we want to minimize the risk of the spread of Covid-19,” Sophia Chan, Hong Kong’s secretary for food and health, said at a briefing Tuesday.

The latest outbreaks stem from aircrew members with the city’s flagship airline, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. , who authorities say broke isolation rules and later tested positive for Covid-19. Police late Monday said they arrested the two flight attendants and charged them with violating isolation rules after their arrival from the U.S. in late December. They face fines of up to $640 and up to six months in prison.

From Jan. 4 through Monday, the city has recorded 326 Covid infections. Of those, 68 were transmitted within the community or linked to a case involving a traveler into the city, while the rest were imported.

Hong Kong has closed schools, gyms and other public facilities across the city and ordered all restaurants to close at 6 p.m. since the new outbreak began in early January. It has also suspended inbound flights from eight countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Canada, until Feb. 4.

Travelers from more than 150 countries are subject to a quarantine of 21 days at a government facility or a hotel, as well as multiple coronavirus tests. Anyone who tests positive for the virus must be hospitalized regardless of whether the case is symptomatic, a policy that has strained the city’s medical facilities.

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