White-tailed deer across Ohio have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, new research has found—and the results also show that viral variants evolve about three times faster in deer than in humans.
strain in the United States in the early fall of 2021 that accounted for almost 90% of the sequences, and alpha, the first named variant of concern that had circulated in humans in the spring of 2021.
"There's probably a timing component to what we found—we were near the end of a delta peak in humans, and then we see a lot of delta in deer," Bowman said."But we were well past the last alpha detection in humans. So the idea that deer are holding onto lineages that have since gone extinct in humans is something we were worried about."
That said, the variants circulating in deer are expected to continue to change. An investigation of the mutations found in the samples provided evidence of more rapid evolution of both alpha and delta variants in deer compared to humans. Circulation among animals, however, remains highly likely. Bowman noted that about 70% of free-ranging deer in Ohio have not been infected or exposed to the virus,"so that's a large body of naive animals that the virus could spread through rather uninhibited."
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Scientists Sound the Alarm: COVID-19 Virus Is Rapidly Evolving in White-Tailed DeerStudy finds deer are virus reservoirs, promoting ongoing mutation. New research has found that white-tailed deer across Ohio have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. Alarmingly, the results also show that viral variants evolve about three times faster in deer than in humans. Scien
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