The study comes out of the University of Granada (URG) and the Andalusian School of Public Health in Spain. The researchers looked at data from 2,086 individuals, and their behavior patterns throughout the country’s strict lockdown period between March and May, 2020. What the researchers found was that people who lived with a dog were 78% more likely to catch COVID-19.
The study’s authors said that this finding directly correlated with a large increased risk of contracting a COVID-19 infection. However, the researchers weren’t able to explain how owning a dog created such a massive increase in catching COVID-19, especially when taking into account other pets people own, and their lack of increasing COVID-19 risk. Additionally, the researchers speculate that there is likely a connection between walking dogs and exposure to the virus in a public setting.
Cristina Sanchez Gonzalez, a researcher at the UGR’s Biomedical Research Centre and the main author of the study said, “In the midst of a pandemic and in the absence of an effective treatment or vaccine, preventive hygiene measures are the only salvation, and these measures should also be applied to dogs, which, according to our study, appear to directly or indirectly increase the risk of contracting the virus.”
Original Article: tweaktown