The first wild animal in the US has tested positive for COVID-19 and what that means for your weekend. Tonight at 11.

We've known for a while that animals get Covid. There have been documented cases of tigers, lions, cats and dogs. But so far it's only been domesticated or captive animals. But now this cheeky little mink in Utah has coronavirus and has the honor of being the first known case of a wild animal having the virus.

The USDA has been screening mink farms around Utah, Michigan, and Wisconsin. There have been several major outbreaks at mink farms around the world. But in the midst of carrying out these screenings, they discovered a wild mink nearby that tested positive.

A USDA official said, "The [NVSL] has confirmed SARS-CoV-2 by real time RT-PCR and sequencing of a nasal swab collected from a free-ranging, wild mink sampled in Utah."

But thankfully,

There is currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is circulating or has been established in wild populations surrounding the infected mink farms. Several animals from different wildlife species were sampled, but all others tested negative.

This wouldn't be such a problem if we didn't already know that minks that die with Covid can RISE FROM THE DEAD.

Ugh. Now I'm going to have to check all my furs for Covid.