Yes, you read that right! A new study just out in Nature Communications (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39782-x) shows that white-tailed deer across the US and Canada are infected with multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2. Infection in wild deer was documented as early as January of 2020 in just a few states and now a diversity of human variants of the virus have been documented in deer across the US and Canada. Data also suggest transmission between deer in the wild and recent evidence suggests a few cases of transmission from deer to humans in Canada. What does this mean for us? Well, with a diversity of variants circulating around in a broadly distributed and common wildlife species that shares habitat with humans, the risk of continued spillover of SARS-CoV-2 from deer to humans is a possibility and white-tailed deer may serve as important reservoir hosts. Spillover from humans to deer and then back into humans. Wild times! Stay tuned for more updates!
Wildlife Pathogens Lab 