Enlarge image
A threat to British society?
"Boss cat" Larry in Downing Street, London
Photo: Peter Nicholls/REUTERS
At the beginning of the corona pandemic, the transmission of the virus was still largely unexplored - it could have ended badly for cats in the UK.
According to James Bethell, a former government official at the Department of Health, in the early days of the pandemic the government in London considered killing all domestic cats to contain the virus.
This is reported by the British daily newspaper »Guardian«.
It was unclear whether domestic cats could transmit the corona virus, the Tory politician said.
Transmission from pets to humans?
"We shouldn't forget how little we knew about this disease," Bethell said on Britain's Channel 4 News.
There was also uncertainty as to whether pets could transmit the virus.
'There was even a notion for a while that we needed to urge the public to eradicate all cats in Britain.
Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?” reports Bethell.
The Guardian reports that in July 2020, pet cat owners were warned not to kiss their pets after a female Siamese cat became the first known animal in the UK to contract the disease.
Margaret Hosie, professor of comparative virology at the University of Glasgow, advised cat owners at the time to "pay close attention to hygiene".
Possible transmissions from animals to humans were also an issue in other countries.
A suspected infection of a human via a mink in the Netherlands caused a stir across national borders.
In Germany, the legislator decided that infected pets must be reported and set up a central register for this purpose.
tfb