The Government considered asking people to cull all pet cats in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic as it was unclear whether they could transmit the virus, a former health minister said connie_dimsdale reports:
in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic as it was unclear whether they could transmit the virus, a former health minister said.
James Bethell said the Government had to start making policy while very little was known about the disease, with one idea being to ask the public to “exterminate all the cats in Britain”. Speaking to Channel 4 News, he said: “What we shouldn’t forget is how little we understood about this disease. There was a moment we were very unclear about whether domestic pets could transmit the disease.
“In fact, there was an idea at one moment that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?”after suffering shortness of breath. The infection was confirmed following tests at the Animal and Plant Health Agency laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey.
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Government considered killing all pet cats at start of Covid pandemicYes, really, former minister Lord Bethell, Matt Hancock’s deputy in the Department of Health, has revealed that a mass cull of pet cats in Britain was considered at the start of the pandemic.
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