Just weeks after Denmark ordered the culling of 17 million farmed minks to stop the spread of COVID-19, a mink in Utah has become the first known wild animal to contract the coronavirus in the U.S., officials said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the case of COVID-19 in the small mammal after experts at the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) performed a real-time RT-PCR test and nasal swab. "To our knowledge, this is the 1st free-ranging, native wild animal confirmed with SARS-CoV-2," the USDA wrote in a statement.