What pet owners should know about monkeypox

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, Aug. 25. I’m Corinne Purtill, a science and medicine reporter at The Times.

It’s been just under 100 days since the U.S. logged its first case of monkeypox in Boston on May 19. Since then, nearly 16,000 cases of the virus have been confirmed nationwide. More than 3,000 confirmed or suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported in California alone.

Monkeypox is not like COVID-19: It’s a familiar virus for which vaccines are already available and requires much closer contact to spread. Even so, a beleaguered U.S. public health system has struggled to contain the outbreak‚ a challenge that only grows with every new positive case.

The vast majority of cases reported in California and elsewhere have been among men who have sex with other men. But “there’s no reason, no biological reason, why they are the only risk group,” infectious-disease epidemiologist Maureen Miller told me last week. “And they’re not.”

I spoke with Miller, who is also a medical anthropologist at Columbia University, for a story that explores a major concern scientists have about monkeypox: that it will cross over from humans to other animals species, which would make it much harder to contain.

Before this outbreak, most human cases of the disease came from close contact with infected animals while farming, hunting or playing. Unlike smallpox, which exclusively infected humans, this particular orthopoxvirus is less discriminating in its choice of mammal host. Squirrels, prairie dogs, groundhogs and most likely many species of rats and mice can all be infected.

A lot of the ways pets show affection for owners — licking their faces, nuzzling their skin, leaping up into their bedding — are potential pathways for viral transmission. An infected pet could then pass the virus to other animals through bites, scratches, feces or urine. Rodents could also catch it more directly from humans by burrowing into garbage and coming into close contact with contaminated bedsheets, clothing or bandages. And once a virus is established in an animal population, there’s a chance it can be passed back to humans, potentially in an altered — and more vicious — form.

“These are really big concerns,” said Jane Sykes, a professor of small animal internal medicine at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

“The population of dogs and cats in the U.S. is more than the combined human populations of Australia and the U.K., but the role that they play in the spread of infectious diseases in households has really been ignored,” Sykes said. “It’s really important that we have pets. But I also think that they need to be considered when we’re approaching control of infectious diseases.”

Earlier this month, the Lancet medical journal published a scientific account of the first known case of human-to-dog monkeypox transmission. An Italian greyhound in Paris apparently caught it from his infected owners by sleeping in their bed.

I spoke with the veterinarian to understand what pet owners and others tasked with caring for animals should know about monkeypox. Our conversation has been lightly edited.

What are your concerns about the reported case of human-to-dog transmission?

I feel that we should be cautious jumping to conclusions based on that one case report. It’s really important that people know that the susceptibility of dogs to this disease has not been confirmed. We have no idea from the paper just how much [monkeypox] DNA was detected, so there remains the possibility that this dog could have been contaminated with monkeypox virus DNA but didn’t actually have an active infection. We don’t have any reports of antibodies to a pox virus in the dog’s serum. It’s possible that down the road they’ll do that testing and it will get reported, but right now, we don’t have that information.

How do viruses spread from humans to animals?

Even if they’re people infections, sometimes dogs and cats can play a role in the spread of those pathogens in a household. If the virus survives in the environment for long periods of time and there’s heavy contamination with furniture, towels, bedding and so forth, contact between an animal and those objects might also have the potential for transmission. And we know that the virus can also be spread in respiratory secretions such as nasal discharge. So if an owner was kissing and licking and rubbing on the face of their pet — which we know people do — that could also lead to transmission.

It’s also really important that people continue to understand the importance of the human-animal bond and not do anything drastic, like relinquish an animal because they’re worried about monkeypox, or bathe animals with potentially harmful chemicals.

If people suspect they have monkeypox, what should they do to prevent the virus from spreading to pets or other animals?

People with known or suspected exposures or infections should definitely not engage in very close contact such as co-sleeping with a pet. If there are immunocompromised people in the household, the animals should be removed from the household and cared for by others who are not immune compromised. Otherwise, the animal should be kept isolated from other animals and people in the home for 21 days after the first known exposure and monitored for illness.

What signs of illness should people look for in their pet?

We still don’t know the signs that pets could develop, but based on research studies it is likely to be decreased appetite, inactivity or sleeping more due to fatigue or muscle aches. They could also develop skin lesions, which might appear as a spotty rash on areas where there is not hair covering the skin or just a few raised red bumps. Infected prairie dogs in the 2003 U.S. outbreak had rashes and lymph node enlargement.

Would you expect dogs and cats to recover from monkeypox just as humans do?

Yes, absolutely. Experimental studies done in laboratory animals show that recovery could occur.

And now, here’s what’s happening across California:

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Bye bye, internal combustion. California air regulators are set to vote today on sweeping new rules that would prohibit the sale of all new gasoline-powered cars, SUVs, minivans and pickups in the state by 2035. If other states follow as expected, the landmark decision could reshape the American auto industry. Los Angeles Times

Biden administration to cancel (some) student debt. President Biden moved Wednesday to cancel $10,000 in student debt for individuals earning less than $125,000 annually, and extended a pause on loan repayments for all borrowers through the end of the year. About $28.5 billion of the nation’s $1.6 trillion in federal loan debt belongs to 3.8 million Californians. A UC Merced economist estimates that 92% of those borrowers will be eligible for the loan forgiveness. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

A jury sides with Vanessa Bryant in crash scene photo trial. A jury ordered Los Angeles County to pay Vanessa Bryant, widow of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, and widower Chris Chester $31 million in damages after sheriff’s deputies and firefighters shared graphic photos of their spouses’ and children’s deaths in a 2020 helicopter crash. Attorneys argued that the illicit photos violated their clients’ right to privacy and inflicted emotional distress. The verdict happened to fall on Mamba Day, which Los Angeles declared in Kobe Bryant’s honor in 2016 (he wore jersey Nos. 8 and 24.) The city unveiled a 125-foot mural by L.A.-based illustrator Nikkolas Smith of the late Lakers star. Los Angeles Times

What’s with the turtles? Sit by any park pond in Los Angeles long enough, and you’re bound to see a turtle or two poke its head above the water. How did a reptile native to the Mississippi Valley spread so widely across California? And if the area’s lone native turtle species is nearing endangered status, where did all these testudines come from? The Times uncovers a reptilian mystery. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Abortion rights may soon be part of California’s Constitution. A measure to amend the state Constitution to add protections for abortion rights appears on track for victory this fall. A new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll finds that 71% of California voters support the proposed amendment, and majorities back other policies aimed at protecting abortion rights. Los Angeles Times

Sephora will pay for concealing data sales. Makeup retailer Sephora must pay California $1.2 million and change its privacy policies after the company allegedly sold customers’ personal information without their permission, under the terms of a settlement announced Wednesday. Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Sephora failed to correct its policies when notified that it was violating state privacy laws. Sacramento Bee

CRIME, COURTS AND POLICING

San Francisco business owners propose civil disobedience. Frustrated business owners in the Castro District have threatened to stop paying city taxes and fees if the city does not help the area’s unhoused people. “You can’t have a vibrant, successful business corridor when you have people passed out high on drugs, littering your sidewalk,” the Castro Merchants Assn.’s co-president told the San Francisco Chronicle. “These people need to get help.” San Francisco Chronicle

Orange County to pay inmate who lost pregnancy in custody. The county will pay $480,000 to a former inmate who suffered a miscarriage after sheriff’s deputies stopped at Starbucks while driving her to a hospital. Sandra Quinones, whose lawyer says she is homeless and mentally ill, was six months pregnant in 2016 when her water broke in her jail cell. Jailers did not respond to her calls for help for two hours, the suit alleges, and sent her to the hospital not in an ambulance but in a patrol car whose deputies stopped for coffee. Orange County Register

HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

State health officials eye kids’ low COVID-19 vaccine rates. Only 37% of California children ages 5 to 11 have completed their primary COVID-19 vaccination series, compared with 67% of adolescents 12 to 17 and 78% of adults 18 to 49. Los Angeles Times

More marshland on the horizon. San Diego adopted an aggressive climate action plan this month that pledges to create 700 additional acres of marshland across the city. Also known as wetlands, marshlands serve the dual purpose of removing greenhouse gases from the air and fighting sea-level rise by acting as a coastal sponge. San Diego Union-Tribune

“We are seen as disposable.” Many Angelenos who make a living from sex work — an umbrella term that includes stripping, performing and other forms of selling sexual services — remember the history of the HIV epidemic and are wary of a similar dynamic playing out with monkeypox. “On the streets, they’re not thinking that it’s just for someone who has sex with another man,” one outreach worker told reporter Emily Alpert Reyes. After seeing how HIV reached other groups, “with monkeypox, they’re like, ‘We’re not falling for that.’” Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

A plea for a better license plate. South Dakota has Mount Rushmore, Arizona has a cactus and California has ... the URL for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Editorial writer Laurel Rosenhall makes the case for a standard license plate that reflects a little more of the Golden State’s pizzazz. Los Angeles Times

A new white rhino is born. Livia, a southern white rhino who lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, gave birth Aug. 6 to a baby male. Both the calf and the first-time mom are doing well, reported the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, which posted a video of the calf playing at the Nikita Kahn Rhino Rescue Center. An estimated 18,000 southern white rhinos remain in native habitats worldwide. San Diego Union-Tribune

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: Sunny, 86. San Diego: Partly cloudy, 78. San Francisco: Partly cloudy, 68. San Jose: Partly cloudy, 84. Fresno: Sunny, 104. Sacramento: Partly cloudy, 94.

AND FINALLY

Today’s California memory is from Kimberly Denend Guthrie:

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.