Denmark is the world’s biggest producer of Mink for the fur trade. Mink are raised on farms in tightly spaced cages. Mink on a farm caught COVID-19 from a human. Since they are packed so close together the 10,000 mink on this one farm were soon all infected, The virus spread like wild fire over the course of two weeks. It as then discovered that the mink could transmit the disease back to humans. “Cluster 5” is the name given to a mutated variant of the COVID-19 virus.
By Tuesday, November 10, 2020 COVID-19 had been reported on 237 farms in Jutland with further cases suspected on another 33. The Danish government decided they had to destroy all 17 million of the animals in the country. The government ordered a lock down of the effected northern jurisdictions. All cultural institutions, cinemas, theaters, sports and leisure facilities, and dine-in restaurants have been ordered closed, and travel into or out of the municipalities is prohibited.
The concern was that the virus would mutate when it was passes back to humans making it possible that this new strain might not be effected by any vaccine that might be developed.
After the mass murder had been started the prime minister admitted that there was no legal justification for the cull. Police and the armed forces have been deployed and farmers have been told to cull their healthy animals too -but the task will take weeks.
Mink are killed by forcing them into airtight metal boxes. CO2 is then used to gas the animals to death.My sister once had to euthanize a small mouse. It was put in a bucked and gassed. I could hear its tiny gasps and coughs as it threw itself against the side of the container in an attempt to survive. That memory still haunts me. How could it be possible to gas 17 million living beings?
They are then burned along with their fur. Huge trenches are being dug and the animals are being dumped into mass graves.
COVID-19 has infected Minks being raised on farms in America as well. The census shows that there are 2836 Mink farms in America. 11 mink farms had Covid-19 outbreaks so far in America. On August 6, 2020 a mink farmer in Utah, reported “deaths in numbers they’d never seen before.” Thousands of Mink have died in Utah and Wisconsin. A necropsies on some of the the animals found, lungs that were “wet, heavy, red, and angry,” all signs of pneumonia. Researchers in America are now trying to determine whether these workers gave the virus to the mink, or vice versa. Mink suffer similar symptoms to humans. Difficulty breathing and the virus progresses rapidly, with most infected mink dead by the next day.
Now, scientists at University of Oxford, UK have reviewed the data say the mutations themselves aren’t particularly concerning because there is little evidence that they allow the virus to spread more easily among people, make it more deadly or will jeopardize therapeutics and vaccines. The Danish government still wants to kill all 17 million animals since they are so vulnerable to the virus and can spread it to humans. As always America seems to be on a “wait and see” holding pattern. Any Mink infected pose a risk to public health.