The question arises in the following way:
In response to the question on RG posed earlier, "Can animals in the wild catch COVID-19?" R. T. Corlett replied in part: “This shows that wild-caught animals can catch SARS and COVID-19, but this presumably occurred after they were captured, in a crowded holding facility: cages of bats stacked over cages or civets or pangolins. In the wild, transmission would be very improbable, so I think the answer to the question is probably 'no'.”
The emphasized part of his remarks gives rise to the question here posed.
And if there is such a risk, what can be done to reduce the risk?
SARS-CoV-2 in animals or pets - a hypothesis or a reality?
There have been the hypothesis that dogs, cats, fish, pigs, horses, goats and some other sea animals might have served as intermediate hosts (1) for novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) to mutate before it caused the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic among humans.
However, till now, there are only reports of a dog and a tiger having had confirmed to be positive (2)
1. Article COVID-19: Zoonotic aspects
2. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/04/06/Tiger-infected-with-coronavirus-Can-animals-pets-spread-COVID-19-
Horsehoe bat is a reservoir of COVID-19. Pangolin seems an intremediate animal.
Mongoose-like animals or civet or pangolin.
No evidence that livestock can transmit COVID-19 to humans
Veterinary experts assert that there is no indication that livestock can be carriers of COVID-19 and be a source of infection to people.
Perhaps modify the question to: Can pigs, cattle, chicken, mink and other animals in commercial farming operations act as a reservoir for COVID-19?
Article:
Coronavirus rips through Dutch mink farms, triggering culls to prevent human infections
Science June 9, 2020
doi:10.1126/science.abd2483
From the article:
In a sad sideshow to the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities in the Netherlands began to gas tens of thousands of mink on 6 June, most of them pups born only weeks ago. SARS-CoV-2 has attacked farms that raise the animals for fur, and the Dutch government worries infected mink could become a viral reservoir that could cause new outbreaks in humans.
Genetic and epidemiological sleuthing has shown that at least two farm workers have caught the virus from mink
Science magazine Aug. 18, 2020
COVID-19 hits U.S. mink farms after ripping through Europe
doi:10.1126/science.abe3870
From: Ukri.org
A team of scientists at the University of Glasgow recently identified two known cases of human-to-cat COVID-19 transmission in the UK.
The study was led by the University of Glasgow and published in the Veterinary Record (BVA journals) with researchers at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR). It describes two cases of human-to-cat SARS-CoV-2 transmission, found as part of a COVID-19 screening programme of the feline population in the UK.
Collins, M., Singleton, D.A., Noble, P.J.M., Pinchbeck, G.L., Smith, S., Brant, B., Smyth, S., Radford, A.D., Appleton, C., Jewell, C., Rowlingson, B., Caddy, S. and Jones, P.H. (2021), Small animal disease surveillance 2020/21: SARS-CoV-2, syndromic surveillance and an outbreak of acute vomiting in UK dogs. Veterinary Record, 188: 304-304. https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.427