COVID-19 might have spread from deer to humans, according to a new study published on Monday that examined thousands of samples collected from the animals.
“Overall, this study demonstrated that frequent introductions of new human viruses into free-ranging white-tailed deer continued to occur and that SARS-CoV-2 VOCs were capable of persisting in white-tailed deer even after those variants became rare in the human population,” the study’s authors wrote.
Furthermore, after the virus had mutated within the deer a so-called “spillback” took place, which passed the new mutated virus from the deer back to humans. Two of the spillback cases were found in North Carolina and one in Massachusetts.