Communities around China have ordered their residents to stop keeping pets – or risk getting them culled – amid fears that animals could also catch the new coronavirus that has killed 213 in less than three weeks, MailOnline can reveal.
Residential committees, village officials and companies from various provinces and municipalities issued the strict order to locals after receiving instructions from their superiors to tackle the epidemic, it has emerged.
One village in Hebei urged all households to ‘deal with’ their pets within five days, otherwise officials would ‘handle’ them altogether; while another residential committee in Shaanxi instructed people to ‘consider the overall situation’ and dispose of their cats and dogs immediately, according to notices supplied to MailOnline.
The news came as China‘s top expert for infectious diseases warned that pets would also need to be quarantined should they be exposed to coronavirus patients, causing fears that animals could also catch the disease.
The World Health Organisation, however, claims that it has not seen any evidence of the virus being passed onto cats or dogs.
In Wuhan, the ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak, one neighbourhood banned its residents from letting their cats, dogs and livestock leave their homes. In a flyer posted in the community, local officials threatened to catch, kill and bury the animals on the spot if they see any.
While the authority of one residential complex in Shanghai forbade its residents from feeding stray animals to ‘enforce the control and prevention of the epidemic’, a separate document reads.
Similar commands have appeared in provinces and municipalities across the country, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Hebei, Wuhan, Shanxi and Shanghai, according to animal welfare organisation Humane Society International.
The city of Anshan in Liaoning Province instructed all pet markets to stop trading temporarily and its police forces to ‘strictly restrict’ residents from walking their pet dogs in public in an urgent notice released this week.
It also banned the locals from flying their pigeons and demanded all stray wild pigeons be culled as the outbreak accelerated.
Dr Peter J. Li, China Policy Specialist of Humane Society International, said the organisation had noticed memos issued by Chinese local authorities ordering the banning and even killing of dogs and stray cats.
‘This is not the right approach for local authorities in China to deal with the national crisis that can be traced to China’s out-of-control wildlife trade,’ Dr Li told MailOnline.
‘Companion animals did not contribute to the outbreak of SARS in 2002-2003. They do not have anything to do with the Wuhan epidemic,’ he added.
In Dr Li’s opinion, such orders could undermine the national effort to curb the outbreak by ‘pulling much needed efforts and resources away from the real battleground’.
‘Their acts also show that many of China’s local officials lack the competency to run the Chinese society,’ he concluded.
Prof. Li Lanjuan, a member of the senior expert team from China’s National Health Commission, this week cautioned that pet owners should take extra care of their animals because the virus ‘spreads between mammals’.
Prof. Li, who is also an academician from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told state broadcaster CCTV on Wednesday: ‘In this epidemic season, pet owners should strengthen their management of their pets.’
She added: ‘If your dogs run around outside and come to contact with the outbreak or people infected with the virus, then your pets should also be put in quarantine.
‘Because the epidemic spreads between mammals, therefore we should take precaution against other mammals.’
Online accounts suggested that Prof. Li’s comments prompted pet owners to abandon their animal companions, with some suggesting that dogs and cats had been smashed to death.
While these reports remain unverified, according to the World Health Organisation, no evidence has suggested that cats and dogs could also catch the coronavirus.
In a message posted on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, the group advised people to wash their hands after holding their pets to reduce the risks of catching bacteria from the animals.
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“…..dispose of their cats and dogs immediately…..”
Most of the dogs and cats in China were probably thrown into the Wok a week ago. Rover egg rolls and cat drop soup for the kids. Standard cuisine for them.
Now, in about… Ohh… Maybe a month? The rat population will EXPLODE along with the black death since the gooks killed the cats off like the christians did in Europe. But no worries! The gooks will dine down on the rats.
How about the Chinese get rid of their govt…. get rid of dogs and there goes the lunch (yes, Chinese eat dogs) and get rid of the cats and next thing you know their homes will be infested with mice and rats and the poop that goes with ’em… Who is more dumb–Jews who can’t do the math or Chinese who can’t do the biology…
Throw all animals overboard, we don’t eat them!! I Captin