Day 64: Black Cats

Today in Massachusetts we had 1334 new cases (13% over yesterday), and 24 new deaths. The US has more that 311,000 total cases, and Spain has surpassed Italy to earn second place. (This is especially impressive because Spain has only three-quarters the population of Italy.) Worldwide the total is over 1,200,000 cases and 64,000 deaths.

PlagueBlog has been remiss in report on pet infections. A Belgian housecat was confirmed to be the first feline patient on March 27th. "A week after its owner, the animal presented symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting, and difficulty in breathing." A second feline case was found Monday, March 30th in an asymptomatic domestic short-haired cat from Aberdeen, Hong Kong, sent to quarantine when its owner fell ill and tested there.

At first the only cat concern was for the poor animals catching the disease from overly affectionate humans, but a preprint by Hualan Chen reports that both cats and ferrets can spread the disease, and cats can do so with "respiratory droplets." In another preprint, Chinese scientists tested stray and domestic cats in Wuhan, and found antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in 15% of the hundred or so animals tested after the outbreak.

On the plague ship front, the title of Germ Boat #21 goes to the Coral Princess, which managed to accumulate two dead passengers on its way into the Port of Miami today. Not unlike Germ Boat #18, the Coral Princess thought it could get away with a cruise to South America a month ago, but cut the junket short in mid-March and started searching for any old port in a storm. They managed to dock in Buenos Aires for a day to offload some lucky passengers, but they turned into a germ pumpkin at midnight on March 19th and had to set sail again, this time for Fort Lauderdale. They finally docked in Miami this morning and offloaded the sickest passengers. An unfortunate passenger delayed sickening until later this afternoon, at which time his family got the run-around for hours until they called 911.

P.S. PlagueBlog is saddened to report that the death toll from methanol poisoning in Iran has reached 300 (or, by some reports, 480), and the injured exceed 1,000 (or possibly 2,850), due to the false belief that alcohol is a cure for coronavirus, along with a fatal lack of education about potable vs. poisonous alcohols. Deep distrust in their government that initially downplayed the virus may also be a factor.