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Researchers from the Penn State University found that more than 80 percent of white-tailed deer sampled in parts of Iowa between December of 2020 and January of 2021 tested positive for COVID-19, according to an announcement from the university on Wednesday, Nov. 3.
“We found that 80 percent of the sampled deer in December were positive for SARS-CoV-2, which proportionally represents about a 50-fold greater burden of positivity than what was reported at the peak of infection in humans at the time,” said Suresh Kuchipudi, Huck Chair in Emerging Infectious Diseases and associate director of the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Penn State. “The number of SARS-CoV-2 positive deer increased over the period from April to December 2020, with the greatest increases coinciding with the peak of deer hunting season last year.”
The study found that the percentage of deer that tested positive for COVID-19 increased over time, and 33 percent of all deer tested positive throughout the study, the university said.
There is no evidence so far that COVID-19 can transmit from deer to humans, according to Vivek Kapur, Huck Distinguished Chair in Global Health and professor of microbiology and infectious diseases at Penn State.
However, Kapur added that he thinks hunters and those who live close to deer might want to take precautions, including getting vaccinated against COVID.
"The findings suggest that white-tailed deer may be a reservoir for the virus to continually circulate and raise concerns of the emergence of new strains that may prove a threat to wildlife and, possibly, to humans," according to the announcement from the university.
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