Animals are infected with the new coronavirus again. How can humans defeat the new coronavirus?

Recently, the Mongolian National Center for Zoonotic Disease Research reported that the country had detected the mutated novel coronavirus Delta strain in at least seven beavers. Although this is the first report of animals being infected with the novel coronavirus in Mongolia, this report once again makes us examine a question, that is, how widespread is the novel coronavirus in the animal kingdom?
Before this, there have been reports of many animals being infected with the coronavirus. Cats, minks, pangolins, gorillas, and even tigers and snow leopards in zoos have been infected with the coronavirus. The detection of beaver infection this time is really worrying. Why? Let's talk about the pros and cons of this!

01. Rodent infections cannot be ignored

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The beaver is a member of the family Beaver, but it also has a larger order: Rodentia.

When it comes to rodents, it’s hard to remain calm. After all, rodents are the largest order of mammals, accounting for about 40-50% of mammals.

The most typical example is the mouse, one of the most common animals, the field mouse, the house mouse and even the hamster.

Squirrels and porcupines are also rodents, and of course, the internet-famous animal bamboo rat is also included.

Take a look at this large family of rodents...

If rodents like beavers can be infected, then can other rodents be infected? If rats are infected in large numbers, it will be troublesome because rats are very easy to carry germs. One of the most serious epidemics in human history, the Black Death, also known as the plague, was spread by rats. To this day, humans have not yet eradicated the plague, and sporadic plague occurs every year.

02. Water problems caused by animal infections

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Remember that the new coronavirus was detected in the water of the Seine River in Paris? At that time, it was suspected that the most likely reason was that fecal sewage containing the virus entered the non-drinking water system in Paris.

This time, it is a creature closely related to water bodies - the beaver.

Beavers live by the river and are good swimmers, good at swimming and diving. This means that as the water body spreads, this is a bit uncontrollable.

It can be said that up to now, the existence of the new coronavirus has exceeded the imagination of many of us.

03. How many organisms can the new coronavirus infect?

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I remember there was a study before, which was about how many organisms can the new coronavirus infect?

The article title is:

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein predicted to form stable complexes with host receptor protein orthologues from mammals, but not fish, birds or reptiles

In fact, this is a bioinformatics article. No experiments were conducted, but corresponding calculations and predictions were made using existing data.

Of course, we cannot directly predict whether a certain organism can be infected with the new coronavirus, but through an intermediate molecule, ace2, this molecule is the key for the new coronavirus to enter the cell. If the cell has this key, then new coronavirus infection may occur.

ACE2 varies greatly between different species, so the authors chose to calculate whether ACE2 from different species and the new coronavirus can combine into a stable polymer as the detection standard.

The following figure shows a sequence similarity comparison

After calculation, it can be seen that there are still great differences in the combination of ACE2 and new coronavirus from different species to form stable complexes.

Then, at this time, it was discovered that the new coronavirus can infect a fish and a bird

Of the 35 birds tested only the blue tit shows an infection risk. Similarly, the Nile tilapia is the only fish out of the 72 in this study which has a binding energy favorable to infection.

Thirty-five bird species were counted, with only one (the blue tit) at risk;

72 fish species were counted, and again only one (Nile tilapia) was at risk of infection.

Theoretically, the new coronavirus cannot infect most fish, or it is difficult for the new coronavirus to infect fish.

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It can be said that the existence of the new coronavirus may exceed previous estimates. We can only hope that the virus will eventually become weaker, otherwise it will be even more troublesome.