I'm sure many New York State residents are pleased that Governor Kathy Hochul is lifting the mask mandate beginning Thursday, February 10th. New York State counties and businesses in the state can decide if they want to continue requiring employees and customers to wear masks.

The mandate lifting does not include schools, healthcare facilities, and other places around the state. Check out our article for all the details. And maybe the Governor should require white-tailed deer to be masked in the state of New York as well. Well that's a silly thing to mention, right? Sure, it's a silly thing to say, but here's where I'm going with this.

According to Business Insider, scientists from Penn State University conducted research in December of 2021 and last month (January 2022) and found that some White-tailed deer in Staten Island, New York tested positive for the  SARS-CoV-2, known more widely as the Omicron variant.

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The Biorxiv website mentions that 19 out of 131 white-tailed deer tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.  The study has"not been formally peer-reviewed and is not considered conclusive at this time."

The Business Insider article also states that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has also detected coronavirus infections in white-tailed deer in 15 other states as well. The article also mentions that this is the first report of this variant spilling over to wild animals and that the researchers currently have no evidence of whether deer can spread the coronavirus to humans or not. It's just that the coronavirus can infect deer.

via Business Insider, iBiorxiv

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