The UK Briefly Considered Killing All Pet Cats Early In the Pandemic - Slashdot
source link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/03/03/1753224/the-uk-briefly-considered-killing-all-pet-cats-early-in-the-pandemic
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The UK Briefly Considered Killing All Pet Cats Early In the Pandemic
schwit1 writes: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when little was known about the virus, the U.K. government briefly considered asking the public to exterminate every cat amid fears that the pets could spread the disease. Lord Bethell, a former deputy Health Minister from 2020 to 2021, revealed the news Wednesday during an interview with Britain's Channel 4 News. "Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?" he added. The U.K. has some 10.9 million cats, according to the 2022 PDSA Animal Wellbeing report. The bombshell revelations have sparked astonishment from some on social media, with users sharing images of their own cats and vowing they would have put up a fight. 10 Downing Street's own feline friend Larry's unofficial Twitter parody account wrote: "hard not to take this personally."
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by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:03PM (#63339701)
"... If we can save JUST ONE HUMAN LIFE it will have been worth." - hysterical COVIDIOTS
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At least they thought better of it.
I mean, they had to know there would be pushback from cat owners.-
In Canada they shut down homeless shelters in the middle of winter to protect homeless people.
Sure, some of them died in porta potty's trying to keep warm. But it's a small price.https://globalnews.ca/news/758... [globalnews.ca]
The shelter has been forced to close at 9:30 p.m., due to public health directives issued following an outbreak of COVID-19.
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No, that's not what happened. That one particular homeless shelter was not allowed to remain open overnight because it had suffered from a covid outbreak and didn't have the proper physical measures in place. Other homeless shelters remained open overnight, and that particular homeless shelter resumed 24/7 operation around a week later once the city pitched in to help it put the measures in place.
What happened was a tragedy, but it was not a systemic problem.
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lol. Pushback? From cat owners? They're lucky people in the UK aren't armed like in the U.S. because the whole country would have gone into chaos mode if the U.S. government mandated that all animals (cats, dogs, parrots, gerbils, doesn't matter) had to be euthanized. Think "you have to pass over my dead body if I don't kill you first to get to my cat!" People are usually very attached to their animals.
I'm surprised they even considered it.-
That sounds like an appropriate response if you ask me. Also, pet rent?!! Seriously? Is their child rent? Exactly!!!
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I'm pretty sure a lot of parents wish it was, especially come teenage years. Could we just cancel our renting contract and return the (expletive censored)?
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Depends on who said it. If the almost-sentient cheeto who suggested injecting disinfectant randomly brought in up in one of his verbal diarrhea sessions, you'd have roughly have the country nodding along and thinking that's a good idea and will work as a great alternative to them having to take dewormers.
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This just proves the aristocracy never learns, a why it is the royalty that needs to be exterminated.
The black plague was largely spread by parasites that lived on rats or from human to human through these mostly fleas. The cats, obviously killed the rats.
The aristocracies answer. Kill the cats.
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Like American football. Without the power to kill at will.
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It's the politicians who are the new royalty. You're attached to old labels rather than function. No matter how the Party bleats about equality and murdering aristocrats, before a revolution even ends they are a full new aristocracy already.
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That word does not mean what you think it means. Idiot.
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I think they meant to say Covidians
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"... If we can save JUST ONE HUMAN LIFE it will have been worth." - hysterical COVIDIOTS
This is not like mask wearing and vaccines. This would have been beyond the pale but, more importantly, completely unnecessary and ineffective next to other measures as opposed to masks and vaccines. Obviously the first consideration with pet cats is if they can catch the virus and spread it to humans. Beyond this, there's the fact that pet cats are _pets_. In fact, a large percentage of them are indoor pets. It would make zero sense to kill cats who never leave the house to avoid spreading communicable diseases - that they could only catch _from_ the residents of the house - _to_ the residents of the house. Then, for outdoor cats, there's the question of how likely they are to actually catch a virus. That's more complicated. Cats are typically pretty solitary when they are out and about, especially if they're fixed, but they can meet up with each other and even meet in big groups. Of course, in that case, worst case _should_ have been an order to keep pet cats confined. What I find interesting is that the behavior of dogs, even if they go outside only on leashes, is still much more likely to spread disease among them. I mean, they're basically coprophages, for one thing. So why would this have just been for pet cats?
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I'm a cat lover and I'd die protecting my cat against human threats, but this news story is overblown. They "considered" it means they had a brainstorming session on one of the first days of the pandemic, and someone came up with that idea. They might have sent it to another ministry with questions "would it be useful?" or "can we really do it?", the answers were NO, and then everybody forgot about it, except this guy right now.
I think UK administration loves to devise contingency plans. In 2013 or so, during the EU financial crisis, the UK prepared a plan to evacuate their citizen out of EU in case of global economical collapse. The risk was ridiculously exaggerated, but they lose nothing writing such plan, except for some money paying a team to think about improbable scenarios.
They are probably working right now on scenarios like nuclear war, or total disruption in food importations.
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>"more importantly, completely unnecessary and ineffective next to other measures as opposed to masks and vaccines. "
Killing pet cats would indeed be *insane* next to any measure (even if there ever was any evidence that cats could spread COVID-19). But most other early pandemic measures were not that effective, either. Masks are not very effective against aggressively contagious airborne viruses (respirators are, though). Handwashing, sterilizing postal packages, plexiglass shields, and other such thi
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The only hysteria is the over-reaction to the cats anecdote.
So what happened? One guy asked at a meeting how bad it was and if they might have to put down domestic cats? Why not ask?
Better than that other country who prime-minister was asking about injecting bleach.
Remember that over 4 million cattle had been slaughtered in the UK because of the BSE outbreak.
And we've seen increasing cases in recent decades when millions of domestic animals were slaughter to stop disease spread - pigs, chickens, etc.
Denmar-
>"One guy asked at a meeting how bad it was and if they might have to put down domestic cats? Why not ask?"
Because it is insane. To many, killing a cherished indoor pet cat because they might transmit COVID-19 would be in the same realm as killing their children because they might transmit COVID-19.
>"Remember that over 4 million cattle had been slaughtered in the UK because of the BSE outbreak."
You are seriously going to compare killing cattle or chickens to pet cats??
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Better than equating them with children, certainly.
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It's a modest proposal...
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