The mobilization in defense of small pets, hamsters in the lead, started on the Internet and was quick and fast: until Thursday evening, just 68 small rodents had been delivered to the Hong Kong collection center for their slaughter, online with the draconian measure of the health authorities against about 2,000 hamsters, rabbits, chinchillas and guinea pigs, decided on Tuesday due to 11 positive animals at Covid in a pet shop in Causeway Bay.
On social media, in addition to the explosion of anger, videos of the nuisance action were posted, made above all by very young people, committed to snatching the pets away from the owners with desperate appeals, up to the entrance of the collection structure.
The validity of the "precautionary measure", which affected pets bought after December 22, was reiterated by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation of the former colony which, in a note, asked to "immediately stop such actions and to return the hamsters taken away ".
The local government has also mobilized Hong Kong's leading virus expert, Yuen Kwok-Yung, a world-renowned microbiologist, who believes the hamster-related series of infections could contain a new virus mutation, justifying an urgent effort to contain the risks with the killing of thousands of pets.
"Faced with these multiple unknowns, if the spread of the mutated virus in the community is not stopped soon, it could spread to Hong Kong, on the mainland and abroad, leading to another disaster," said Yuen, according to whom the viral strain. it is potentially a recently adapted one, with a mutation known as D427G.
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