Hong Kong ends year-long hamster import ban: report
Fox News
Several countries culled hundreds of thousands of mink in 2020 after determining that the populations at farms had COVID-19 infections and risked transmission to other animals.
Hong Kong banned the import of hamsters after officials traced an outbreak of the Delta variant last year to a pet shop employee. Officials found 11 hamsters imported from the Netherlands carried the virus, leading to a cull of around 2,000 animals to stop the virus spreading amid fear of animal-to-human transmission. Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news.
Studies found that rodents, including mink and hamsters, could carry the coronavirus. Six countries, including the U.S., Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Sweden, noted the presence of the virus among mink populations, prompting the cull of hundreds of thousands of mink in 2020.