While scaling a mountain of human suffering, it appears we have forgotten the plight of the rat.
An NBC Newsreport published this week shines a light on how COVID-19 is affecting rats, who are said to be in "dire survival mode" due to the fact that smart people are practicing social distancing and thus not utilizing restaurants and grocery stores with as much frequency.
"It's just like we've seen in the history of mankind, where people try to take over lands and they come in with militaries and armies and fight to the death, literally, for who's going to conquer that land," urban rodentologist Bobby Corrigan said in the report. "And that's what happens with rats. A new 'army' of rats come in, and whichever army has the strongest rats is going to conquer that area."
Corrigan explained that rats who are doing well during the novel coronavirus are those who have relied on food supplies like home trash, as humans are handling their private trash the way they always have—"poorly." For those who relied on restaurant or similar locales for generations, only a few (admittedly horrendous) options remain including rat fights, infanticide, and outright cannibalism.
Rat cannibalism aside, COVID-19 remains a very serious issue across the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC was reporting more than 579,000 total cases and more than 22,000 total deaths. And earlier this week, Trump announced the halting of funding to the World Health Organization in connection with what he somehow feels is their mishandling of the novel coronavirus.
