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NEWS
Big cats at the Cincinnati Zoo soon will get a special COVID-19 vaccine.
PHOTO: LISA HUBBARD
An experimental, animals-only SARS-COV-2 vaccine is on the way to zoos around the country, including Cincinnati’s
BY MAIJA ZUMMO
America fell short of U.S. President Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70% of its human population against COVID-19 by July 4, but the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is getting ready to start a vaccination program of its own — only this time, it’s for animals.
International animal health company Zoetis is donating more than 11,000 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to nearly 70 zoos across America, and the Cincinnati Zoo is one of them, says the zoo’s director of animal health, Dr. Mark Campbell.
The special two-dose SARS-COV-2 vaccine, which has been approved for experimental use by the United States Department of Agriculture, will arrive at the Cincinnati Zoo later this summer. The first zoo residents to receive the vaccine will be those who have been found to be more susceptible to the virus, including big cats, gorillas and other mammals who have close interactions with humans, according to the zoo.
The Oakland Zoo began vaccinating its high-risk animals — tigers, black bears, grizzly bears, mountain lions and ferrets — with the Zoetis vaccine on June 30 and all are “doing great post-vaccine,” Erin Harrison, a spokeswoman for the zoo, told CNN.
The Zoetis coronavirus vaccine is specifically made for animals, not for humans.
“When the first dog was infected with COVID-19 in Hong Kong last year, we immediately began to work on a vaccine that could be used in domestic animals, and in eight months we completed our initial safety studies,” says
Mahesh Kumar, senior vice president of Global Biologics at Zoetis. “While thankfully a COVID-19 vaccine is not needed in pets or livestock at this time, we are proud that our work can help zoo animals at risk of COVID-19.”
To prepare for the vaccine, Cincinnati Zoo care teams have been working with the animals to train them to voluntarily receive the shot.
“We’ve already started training some animals, such as gorillas, for voluntary injection training,” says David Orban, Cincinnati Zoo’s director of animal sciences. “This allows those animals to voluntarily participate in their own preventative health care and eliminates the risks associated with anesthesia.”
They use operant conditioning training — in this case, the animals do something the trainers need them to do, like receive a shot, and they get positive reinforcement.
“A big part of that training is to condition those animals to voluntarily accept a hand injection,” Campbell says. “And we use that frequently to administer normal vaccines that we have as part of the preventative medicine program we have here at the zoo.”
For example, Fiona the hippo has been trained for voluntary blood draws and the zoo’s giraffes have been trained to present their hooves for foot care.
“I think the biggest difference — and the same difference with people — is that this is a two-dose vaccination,” Campbell says. ‘It’s always much harder to get people to comply with the second dose of the vaccine, and it’s going to be equally as complicated for our animals to accept that vaccine.”
The order in which the animals will receive the vaccine has yet to be determined, and the zoo says it depends “on the status of animals’ injection training” when the doses arrive. And just like the human COVID vaccine, the Zoetis vaccine needs to be carefully stored and used within a certain expiration period.
“Our animal health team will have a carefully planned strategy mapped out once we get started,” Orban says. “They have been in close contact with Zoetis and other zoos that have administered shots to their animals.”
The Cincinnati Zoo stepped up COVID precautions for its animals in April 2020 after a 4-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo named Nadia tested positive for the virus. Nadia’s sister, two Amur tigers and three African lions at the zoo also developed symptoms of respiratory illness (they were not tested for COVID because the zoo did not want to risk putting them all under general anesthesia).
The Bronx Zoo said the animals were infected by an asymptomatic caretaker, and the USDA said that the virus’ leap from zookeeper to big cat was the “first case of its kind.”
At that time, the Cincinnati Zoo said it was “proactively stepping up distancing and safety measures in animal areas and throughout the zoo.”
Companion animals such as dogs and cats have contracted the virus, as have gorillas, mink and other big cats, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many animals have recovered, but in some cases, like on mink farms, thousands of animals were killed to prevent the risk of a COVID variant being transmitted to humans.
To help continue to keep its animals safe while they await vaccination, the Cincinnati Zoo is still requiring guests to wear masks in places where there is close contact between humans and animals, like at giraffe feedings or while visiting the goats in the barnyard.
An orangutan trains for its upcoming COVID-19 injection at the Cincinnati Zoo. PHOTO: CINCINNATI ZOO VIDEO STILL
CITY DESK Cincinnati City Council Member Liz Keating’s Proposed Charter Amendment: Resign Before Running for Other Public Offices
BY ALLISON BABKA
A Cincinnati City Council member says she wants to ensure that elected officials keep their attention on local needs while in office. On July 13, interim council member Liz Keating stood in front of City Hall to announce her “Resign to Run” charter amendment. According to the proposal, Cincinnati’s mayor and council members would need to resign before running for another salaried, elected office. Keating said that too many Cincinnati officials have viewed their local positions as a pit stop rather than an end point. “For too long, City Hall has been a stepping stone to higher offices, to more power, to greater glory,” Keating said. “But Cincinnati isn’t a stepping stone. It’s a $1.4 billion enterprise. It’s a community with over 300,000 people.” Keating said that the proposal would help curb the corruption that may occur as officials try to climb the political ladder and focus less upon their current duties. “Once a council member or mayor files the documentation to begin fundraising for another office outside of the city, they are no longer eligible to serve for the city,” Keating said. “It results in an automatic, irrevocable resignation from office.” “Resign to Run” would require resignation only if the campaign contribution limits for the new office are higher than the city’s. “What we want to do is do what’s right for Cincinnati and the people of Cincinnati, and while you’re here serving in City Hall, you should be focused on City Hall,” she added. Cincinnati City Council is on recess for the summer, and the council would not consider Keating’s proposal until its return. Cincinnati residents could vote on the proposal in November if city council passes it or if Keating collects enough valid local signatures to do so.
Cincinnati Councilwoman Liz Keating
PHOTO: CINCINNATI CITY COUNCIL WEBSITE
Feds Charge 16 People with Firearm Crimes as Cincinnati Grapples with Gun Violence
BY ALLISON BABKA
Vipal Patel, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, has a message for people who own and use illegal guns: The feds are coming for you. During a briefing July 8, Patel announced that 16 people living in Cincinnati have been arrested and charged with federal gun crimes. Of those, 15 had been previously convicted of felonies. All arrestees are ages 22 to 48 years old. People who have been convicted of felonies are not permitted to have firearms, the law states. Those recently arrested are charged with illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and could see 10 years in federal prison. “We are committed to getting guns out of the hands of people who have already been convicted of violent crimes and are prohibited under federal law from owning, possessing or controlling firearms,” Patel said. Some of those arrested also face federal charges of trafficking fentanyl, heroin and cocaine, which could be worth up to 20 years in federal prison. Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent in Charge Alicia Jones joined Patel in the briefing, and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office have been working together, as well. This batch of arrests is the third wave of an ongoing collaboration to reduce Cincinnati’s gun violence. “Since last September, more than 50 people now have found out the hard way that once you’ve been convicted of a felony or of certain misdemeanors and absent restoration of gun rights by the state, you are not allowed to own, possess, have, control a firearm of any type,” Patel said. “And not just firearms — body armor and even a bullet.” Patel said that the goal is to try felons who possess illegal firearms in federal court. “Why? Because where appropriate, the statutory penalties in federal court and the sentencing guidelines often are more severe than in state court,” Patel explained. After previous federal arrests, local gun violence dropped significantly before climbing again, Patel said. The latest round of federal arrests comes after a sustained spate of shootings and violence in Cincinnati, including a deadly July 4 shooting in Smale Riverfront Park that left the two teenaged shooters dead and several bystanders injured. As of press time, police had not yet recovered the firearms the teens had used. In August, the Cincinnati Police Department plans to open a gun crime intelligence center to track firearms used in crimes, from their manufacturing date to their first sale to their different owners. Isaac said the effort will be a collaboration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, along with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office, parole and probation officers and others. “The (guns) come from a multitude of places. They’re stolen from cars, they’re stolen from homes and businesses. People purchase them legally, then pass them on to others who are prohibited persons,” Isaac said. “I’m certainly not an anti-gun person — obviously I’m a police officer, I’m a military veteran — but I also know that our country has produced more firearms and sold more firearms (in 2020) than any year on record.” “More guns are being produced, more guns are being sold. That simply means that there are more guns available, and I think that is a big part of what we’re seeing,” the chief added. During a briefing earlier in July, Cranley said that Cincinnati is not alone in experiencing an uptick in gun violence, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. Throughout Ohio, gun sales had increased in 2020, largely as opposition to COVID-19 health regulations. And Ohio is one of the worst states in the nation for gun safety laws, the Giffords Law Center reported earlier this year. The Cincinnati Enquirer recently reported that gun violence during 2020 spiked in Cincinnati, but for the first half of 2021, the number of homicides was lower than in previous years. Since July 9, the Cincinnati Police Department has added 20-25 mobile officers to weekend patrols throughout the summer to help quell the violence. The officers are working volunteer overtime beyond their regular shifts, Emily Szink, the Cincinnati Police Department’s public information officer, told CityBeat. The summer street additions are highly mobile so they can watch populous areas and immediately respond to incidents. This mobile squad is paid through the department’s regular overtime budget, and these additional officers do not reduce the number of staff already assigned to districts, Szink said.
Cincinnati Rent Keeps Rising
BY ALLISON BABKA
The coronavirus pandemic just keeps on giving. Median rental prices in Cincinnati continue to increase, with big year-over-year raises occurring in June, a new report from Realtor.com says. This comes after additional increases in May, which gave Cincinnati one of the highest rent escalations in the nation at the time. In its July 15 report, Realtor.com notes that the Greater Cincinnati rental market is No. 6 in the nation for year-over-year increases, up three spots from May. The overall median rent here is $1,200 per month, a 17.1% increase over June 2020 and a 4.4% increase since May. As they did in May, local rents increased for studios, one-bedroom apartments and two-bedroom apartments in June. Last month, people in Greater Cincinnati paid $1,025 per month for a studio, $1,155 for one bedroom and $1,275 for two bedrooms. That equates to studios going up by 2.5% over the last year, single bedrooms by 12.7%, and doubles by a whopping 21.4%. Realtor.com’s report says that in June, the median rent increased over the last year in 44 of the 50 largest metro areas. The national median currently sits at $1,575 per month, a 8.1% increase since June 2020. Nationally, the price of a two-bedroom apartment rose 10.2% over last year. In May, Realtor.com hypothesized that as the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs, both the rental and single-family housing markets are finding their footing and making up for lost time. But the situation likely will continue, harming lower-income residents the most. “The surge we’re seeing in rental prices is likely to exacerbate the K-shaped, or uneven, nature of the pandemic recovery in the U.S. Rents are rising at a faster pace than income, which is adding to the challenges faced by lower-income Americans as they struggle to recover from job losses and other hardships brought about by COVID,” said Realtor. com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “Looking forward, rents aren’t expected to slow unless we see a fundamental shift in the number of homes for sale and for rent.” For its report, Realtor.com looked at rental data for apartment communities as well as private rentals in the country’s 50 largest metropolitan regions.
