Reports reaching us at Checkout Magazine has it Chinese authorities have ordered residents to stop keeping pets, in a move to stop the spread of the new coronavirus that has killed 213 in less than three weeks.
MailOnline can reported that residential committees, village officials and companies from various provinces and municipalities issued the strict order to locals after receiving instructions from their superiors to tackle the epidemic, it has emerged.
One village in Hebei urged all households to ‘deal with’ their pets within five days, otherwise officials would ‘handle’ them altogether; while another residential committee in Shaanxi instructed people to ‘consider the overall situation’ and dispose of their cats and dogs immediately, according to notices supplied to MailOnline.
This recent development is in reaction to statements by China’s top expert for infectious diseases warned that pets would also need to be quarantined should they be exposed to coronavirus patients, causing fears that animals could also catch the disease.
The World Health Organisation, however, claims that it has not seen any evidence of the virus being passed onto cats or dogs.
