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October 3rd, 2021 
Awake Goy 
A decision by local authorities in the Northern Chinese city of Harbin to euthanize three pet cats has caused a huge backlash.
The cats were euthanized against their owner’s wishes on Tuesday after both she and the cats tested positive for covid, according to a report by China’s state-run Global Times.
Breitbart reports: The pets’ owner tested positive for the Chinese coronavirus on September 21. Local health officials ordered the woman to leave her apartment that same day and enter a state hospital to begin a mandatory self-isolation period. Before leaving her home, the woman left food and water out for her three pet cats.
“Shortly after, a community worker carried out tests on the cats and all three cats tested positive for the virus twice, prompting authorities to take action,” the Independent relayed on Thursday, citing a September 28 report by the state-backed Beijing News site.
“Despite appeals from the cat owner, the three cats were put to sleep in what has been viewed as a harsh and extreme measure by Chinese authorities to control the disease spread,” the newspaper revealed.
Beijing News published an original report of the incident on September 28 but deleted the article from its social media accounts hours later following an online backlash of the city officials’ cruel actions.
“The cats would have continued to leave viral traces in the room,” an unnamed community worker told Beijing News in the short-lived article, according to Reuters.
“There is probably no professional medical treatment for animals infected with the novel coronavirus,” the worker said.
He implied that the cats, left untreated, would have posed a reinfection risk to their owner and also might have endangered other residents of her apartment complex. The worker’s explanation runs counter to official health data, which shows that the risk of coronavirus transmission from pet animals to humans is extremely low and has never been recorded in the case of domesticated cats.
“So far, in the whole pandemic, there have been no confirmed reports of cat to human infection,” Vanessa Barrs, a professor at City University of Hong Kong specializing in animal health and disease, told Reuters on September 29.
“It doesn’t seem very realistic that cats would contaminate the environment so badly that they would be a risk for their owner to re-contract Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus],” Rachael Tarlinton, a virology professor at the University of Nottingham, told the news agency. She noted that “surfaces are not a major route of viral transmission.”
The city of Harbin, where the pet cats were euthanized Tuesday, is located in China’s northeastern province of Heilongjiang. The province is currently battling a resurgent coronavirus caseload. Most of Heilongjiang’s new infections have been detected in Harbin, its capital, where local authorities have imposed strict lockdown mandates in recent days to control virus transmission.
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