Dr. Scott Weese, a veterinary internal medicine specialist in the Department of Pathobiology, spoke to the Toronto Star about ongoing concerns regarding the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on mink farms.

Mink breeding has continued on commercial farms during the pandemic — despite the animals being particularly biologically vulnerable to COVID-19.

Weese told the newspaper he thinks a mink breeding moratorium should have been applied across Canada after several coronavirus outbreaks on European mink farms in Europe in the last year.

Weese is the director of U of G’s Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses and chief of infection control at the Ontario Veterinary College Health Sciences Centre.