Is the Coronavirus in Your Backyard?

White-tailed deer could become a reservoir for the virus, putting people and animals at risk, health experts say.

In late 2020, the coronavirus silently stalked Iowa’s white-tailed deer. The virus infected large bucks and leggy yearlings. It infiltrated a game preserve in the southeastern corner of the state and popped up in free-ranging deer from Sioux City to Dubuque.

When scientists sifted through bits of frozen lymph node tissue — harvested from unlucky deer killed by hunters or cars — they found that more than 60 percent of the deer sampled in December 2020 were infected.

“It was stunning,” said Vivek Kapur, a microbiologist and infectious disease expert at Penn State, who led the research.