How Whitetail Deer in America Got Covid.

The curious case of SARS-CoV-2 in American deer has been bothering me for a while now (I'm working on a book btw, so many things like this are on my mind as of late).

Some background from NPR

A recent survey of white-tailed deer in the Northeast and Midwest found that 40% of them had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Now veterinarians at Pennsylvania State University have found active SARS-CoV-2 infections in at least 30% of deer tested across Iowa during 2020. Their study, published online last week, suggests that white-tailed deer could become what's known as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. That is, the animals could carry the virus indefinitely and spread it back to humans periodically.

How did deer get SARS-CoV-2 in such numbers? Hunters are almost always only in direct contact with dead deer…did viral aerosols really drift through the woods and infect deer this easily? Seems bizarre.

I was thinking of this as I was out hunting yesterday, and then I noticed a faint smell wafting through the air. Shit. Not chicken or cow or even hog shit, those all are immediately identifiable to an old country boy like myself. Nope, it was human shit. I got up and walked over the rise in the direction it seemed to be coming from. From my vantage point I could see a field at the edge of the wood, and a spreader out in the field , spraying torrents of sludge over the ground. Some I assume will stay and rot through the winter and be of little salmonella and e.coli concern by spring planting, but a lot will wash off into the streams and river. And then it hit me. Fecal transmission. I had considered aerosol fecal transmission of covid in other contexts before this, things like apartment buildings with defective plumbing traps leading to mass outbreak among residents otherwise isolated inside (once again @LokiJulianus was all over this very early).

I got home and did some boolean searching for deer AND covid AND feces, and came across this bombshell article from The Ethical Skeptic that includes a fecal transmission of covid hypothesis:

Covid looks nothing like the flu in its geographic/demographic progression. Many of my protein rendering company clients had 25 – 40% rates of Covid by June 2020 – and fecal/offal gravity drains are the most likely candidate in this anomaly. We could see Covid creep in though the rendering supply chain in early July 2020, in southern states last year by examining county by county data. Thereafter, when the top 500 counties for growth in Covid just also happened to overlap 90% with U.S. Midwest corn growing counties in early November last year, immediately after Class B Biosolid application season (see Exhibit 1.2 below) – while 40% of the deer in that region got Covid immediately thereafter – this stands as a deductive piece of evidence as to Covid-19’s method of reemergence-inception

Full article is worth a read. Nails down why slaughterhouses were hit so early on. Also raises many interesting issues with the official origins and spread narratives. Much to consider.