A Chinese city has ordered that pets belonging to COVID-19 patients be killed in mass after having been hit hard by a recent wave of the virus.
Fox News reported, The Anci district in Langfang city reportedly told residents Wednesday that all pets belonging to individuals infected with COVID-19 were to be executed, according to the state-run China News Service, as translated by Business Insider. The order was then reportedly repealed by 5 p.m. local time Wednesday.
The order first called for the “complete culling of indoor animals” that belong to COVID patients before it was reversed. It is currently unclear how many pets were killed prior to the reversal.
Animals can catch the virus, though the risk of human to animal or animal to human transmission is incredibly low.
The measure seems quite dystopian in nature, innocent animals slaughtered to keep a virus that they can’t spread at bay.
China has long been economically destroying their country with harsh lockdowns over minor outbreaks since 2020 when the disease first appeared.
The virus was first able to ravage the country when they refused help from the outside world, under reported case and death numbers and concealed the disaster.