On Wednesday, the Jasper County Sheriff's Department said 21 Rhesus monkeys infected with Covid, herpes, and hepatitis escaped from an overturned truck on Interstate 59 just north of Heidelberg, Mississippi.
As it turns out, the sheriff's office got quite a few of its initial details wrong, causing a flurry of public panic.
First, the sheriff said the escaped monkeys were infected with the cocktail of diseases.
Then the sheriff said they'd caught all but one of the monkeys, but there are actually THREE that are still on the loose.
Then the sheriff's office said the monkeys were being transported from Tulane University.
Tulane responded to that assertion with this message:
Non-human primates at the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center are provided to other research organizations to advance scientific discovery. The primates in question belong to another entity and are not infectious. We are actively collaborating with local authorities and will send a team of animal care experts to assist as needed.
The news initially reported that the "caged monkeys" were set to be recovered, but the sheriff's office says the 18 that were recaptured have been "destroyed."
Mississippi Wildlife and Fisheries, along with local law enforcement, are on site, and an animal disposal company has been contacted to assist.
To sum up: 18 monkeys that DEFINITELY don't have super-Covid-herpes-hepatitis were killed before officials from the university that hosts the bioresearch facility that owned the monkeys could retrieve them.
And no one knows why.
And three monkeys are still on the loose.
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