Mink farms turn out to be a much larger source of corona infections than previously thought. One third of the family members of the breeders and their employees were infected.
This conclusion is drawn by biowissenschaft researchers who published their study earlier this month, as reported by de Volkskrant and NOS. The scientists examined family members and employees at outbreaks on sixteen mink farms. One third, 66 people, were found to carry the virus.
Most of them were directly infected by the fur animals. Just like about ten infected stray cats roaming the examined farms. Initially, Minister Carola Schouten (LNV) called the chance that minks would infect people 'negligible.' The now published research shows the chance of infection from infected animals is greater than the chance of infection from a fellow household member.
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Earlier this year, mink farms stated that the fur animals were likely infected by sick employees, some of whom worked at multiple mink farms and could thus spread the virus. Last week, Minister Schouten announced that mink farms would be 'bought out' more quickly and must be closed within a few months. This is several years earlier than the previously planned 2024.
For that closure, the government has made 180 million euros available. It is not yet clear whether Minister Schouten was aware at the time of announcing this decision that the minks were not infected by people, but rather the other way around.
The province of North Brabant counts more than 30 of the over 120 Dutch mink farms that had to be culled after corona infections among the animals. Mink farms are a 'brewing and bubbling vat for COVID-19,' writes de Volkskrant on Saturday.
Following this research into the contagiousness of minks, the newspaper quotes several researchers. Epidemiologist Lidwien Smit from Utrecht University is surprised by the many carriers in the immediate vicinity of the 'fur farms.' "Because such a high percentage of employees carry traces of the virus, it is plausible that many more people have been infected by minks than the few we already knew of."
According to the researchers, there was no immediate danger to local residents. They did find family members and employees infected but no neighbors infected with the same DNA strain of corona as found in the minks.
A question that remains unanswered is how the coronavirus reached different mink farms in Brabant, Limburg, and Gelderland. Possibly, people initially transmitted the virus to minks, and it then spread back from animal to human.
Virologist Marion Koopmans says the fur industry might well have been the missing link responsible for the outbreak in China at the time. "This could be a plausible intermediate step in the path the virus took from bats to humans," she says.