For more information about pathogens that are be passed from one animal species to another, resulting in amplification and transmission to humans, read “SPILLOVER: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic”, by David Quammen. The book is interesting, informative, and frightening, as it explains the evolution and transmission of animal pathogens to humans. The book was published in 2011, and predicted the next pandemic could originate in a wild animal market in China.
During the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, people transmitted the H1N1 influenza virus to swine; and in 2009, the virus returned as an H1N1 Swine Flu variant, to cause the outbreak of Swine Flu. Today, it was reported several tigers at the New York Zoo contracted coronavirus.
We must try to protect animals from infection; and contain the virus in animals, just as we do in people, to protect the animals and ourselves.