As lockdown measures tighten further and fake news spread, animal shelters fear a surge in abandoned animals...
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00Suddenly, in China, there are cases in which dogs and cats become innocent victims in the
00:29Chinese crisis, largely due to the fact that people got misleading information that companion
00:37animals would spread the virus.
00:39However, we still see isolated cases in which dogs and cats are abandoned, and grassroots
00:47officials conducted dog calls on the street and in public places.
00:54This seems to be a limited number of cases, but are still hugely disturbing.
01:10What happened, we think, is that the virus was transmitted to a human either by consuming
01:14a bat or by being around the bats, because that's, again, these kinds of things are culturally
01:19accepted within China.
01:21And then I think the assumption started to be made that all animals were infected with
01:26this.
01:27A virus to move from one species to another is a really rare event, doesn't normally happen.
01:32And so this was one lucky or unlucky bounce of the virus from animals to people, and we
01:38can generally assume that animals are not infectious to human beings.
01:43And this is a rare event, and only when it went to the human being, and then there's
01:46been human-to-human transmission.
01:48We don't really need to worry about that dog being a source or that cat being a source
01:54of infection for other people or for other animals.
02:11The other way that the dogs and the cats have been negatively impacted is when the family
02:16members left the city before the city's lockdown.
02:20They did leave enough food for the dogs and cats, thinking that they would return in a
02:24few days.
02:25However, when the lockdown becomes indefinite, distressed pet owners started to appeal to
02:33animal protection organizations in China for them to go to their apartments and to feed
02:40the dogs and cats.
02:46The Animal Protection Society collects more than 3,500 animals every month.
02:53At the moment, people are confined, they can't leave their homes, so they can't come
02:59and live in our shelters.
03:01It's like a tank that's going to fill up with the animals that are going to come out
03:06of our shelters.
03:07It's like a tank that's going to fill up with the animals that are going to come out
03:12of our shelters.
03:13It's like a tank that's going to fill up with the animals that are going to come out
03:18of our shelters.
03:19In a few days, the situation will get really dramatic.
03:32We would like to have a disinfection to allow people to come and live in our shelters.
03:38We are committed to having a simplified procedure, for example, a first contact via the Internet,
03:43then a reduced contact where we would only present the animal that has been chosen,
03:48in order to avoid contamination between people, employees and future adopters.
04:08If you've been quarantined, then we need to think about that dog, just like everything
04:14that's in your house, that it needs to be quarantined as well, and we need to think
04:18very carefully.
04:19And if you need to see a veterinarian, right, people are setting up very creative things
04:23today, we can do that with telemedicine, we can do that over the phone, with a video conference,
04:27etc., to see if that dog really needs to be seen and minimize that traffic.
04:34I think those of us with companion animals are the lucky ones, because our furry friends
04:39are a source of comfort and distraction as we all go through this period of quarantine
04:46and social distancing.
05:03And if you're going to spend more time than usual around your pet, you will be absolutely happy.