Hong Kong authorities said on January 18, 2022 that they will kill about 2,000 small animals, including hamsters, chinchillas and rabbits, after 11 hamsters tested positive for the coronavirus at a pet store where an employee and costumer were also infected.
The city will also stop the sale of hamsters and the import of small mammals, according to officials from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. The pet shop employee tested positive for the delta variant on Monday, and several hamsters imported from the Netherlands at the store tested positive as well.
Customers who purchased hamsters from the store after Jan. 7, 2022 will be traced and be subject to mandatory quarantine and must hand over their hamsters to authorities to be put down, officials said. Customers who bought hamsters in Hong Kong from Dec. 22, 2021 will be subject to mandatory testing and are urged not contact others until their tests have returned negative. If their hamsters test positive, they will be subject to quarantine.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), animals do not appear to play a significant role in spreading the coronavirus. But Hong Kong authorities said they are not ruling out transmission between animals and humans. Minks are the only known animals to have caught the virus from people and spread it back, according to Dr. Scott Weese at Ontario Veterinary College. 17 million potentially infected minks were killed in Denmark back in November 2020.
Nearly 18,000 people have signed a petition calling for an end to the mass killing. Thousands have volunteers to adopt the animals.