I think most people would agree that the best thing we can do for pets with COVID-19 patients is to keep them in their owners’ homes. But what do we do when a pet needs to be hospitalized and left alone? Someone has to take care of the animals. But who and how? This is a moot point.
The main goal is to reduce the exposure of animals to new people and new environments. In addition, we make sure that animals are kept away from people who are at high risk of severe illness (e.g., elderly people, people with underlying respiratory diseases or weakened immune systems, diabetics, smokers). This isn’t always possible, but here are some options based on what I know so far.
Continued home care for pets by recovered COVID-19 (e.g., recovered family members go home to care for pets each day)
This is probably the best case scenario, because once COVID-19 is defeated, the chances of reinfection (at least in the short term) are very low. If someone who has recovered can come into the house to care for pets if needed, this will keep them away from susceptible people.
Care by someone who has recovered from COVID-19 in the caretaker’s household
This is also a good option, provided no one in the caregiver’s household is susceptible (i.e. someone else in the household has also recovered from COVID-19). It is more convenient, and the risk of moving an animal to a new home with non-susceptible individuals is likely to be minimal. Ideally there are no other pets in the house, or there are some ways to ensure that the animals are kept in separate areas.
Be cared for by someone who is also exposed (such as a family member who does not live in the home but has close contact with the sick person)
As the pandemic progresses, we will have more people recovering. However, not everyone will have a recovering person who can help. If a close friend or family member of the pet owner has been exposed, bringing a pet into their household poses some risk (hopefully the person is not infected), but less than bringing it into a household that has not been previously exposed (people are more unlikely to be infected). From a pet ownership perspective, the ideal situation is for the pet to remain in one’s own home, where the contact will care for it; however, the contact should self-isolate and therefore not leave their home for 14 days. An exception might be if it is a close neighbour, there is no risk of exposing others by walking next door, but it is best to clarify with health authorities.
I would definitely not want to bring an exposed pet into a household with high risk individuals.
Care by someone who’s not recovered or exposed
This is less desirable because you’re bringing an unexposed person (or at least one who doesn’t know has been exposed) into the situation. It helps if that person is at low risk for serious illness and there are no high-risk individuals in the family. However, this condition increases the risk. The best approach is a short, controlled visit to the pet’s home for basic pet care only, ideally wearing some form of PPE (especially the first few days – at least after that, no There will be obvious impacts) Concerns about pet fur contamination). Exposure risks can be limited by reducing the duration of contact, controlling the type of exposure, and practicing good hygiene, especially hand hygiene.
Introducing an animal into a new handler’s household increases risk because pets and people may be in longer and closer contact with less opportunity to use barriers and sanitation while in contact. It would help if animals could be kept in cages or crates all or most of the time, or at least for the first few days, to eliminate concerns about fur contamination (not ideal for pets, but makes sense in the short term) help.
Other options
It gets harder when the “friends, family, and benevolent neighbor” approach isn’t an option. Temporary housing of pets in a shelter may be considered if the shelter is able and willing to treat pets that may be contaminated or infected, but this varies from person to person. There are many shelter plans for this type of emergency.
Animal clinics are another option. However, this is not ideal given the limited isolation capacity of most clinics, as well as the limited staffing and operations of some clinics. Clinics with the facilities, staff and amenities to handle infected cases would be an option. (We are prepared to treat such potentially contagious cases, but even our facility can only treat a limited number of animals.)
When exposed animals need to be removed from households with COVID-19 patients, bathing or disinfecting coat wipes are appropriate to minimize the risk of coat contamination. We don’t know if this poses a real risk, but it’s possible that the virus can live on the hair for a while if the owner deposits it there. how long? we do not know. It could be minutes to hours, but that’s unclear. So a bath and some extra short-term preventive measures such as a cage/crate will help. After a few days, all we had to worry about was whether the animal was actually infected. We still don’t know how common this is, or whether infected animals can infect people. Hopefully we can clarify this in more detail soon. I was assigned to monitor exposed animals, but for obvious reasons it was difficult to get into the home to obtain samples. As we learn more about how often and rarely exposed animals become infected, we can improve our recommendations. Right now, it’s hard to strike a balance between being smart and being practical.
