--- title: New York City Rats Carry COVID-19, Study Finds description: They're able to be infected with the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2, suggests a new study published in the journal mBio. canonical: https://time.com/6261908/new-york-city-rats-covid-19/ author: Simmone Shah article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-03-10T18:50:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T15:33:39.404Z article:section: Health og:title: New York City Rats Carry COVID-19, Study Finds og:description: They're able to be infected with the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants og:url: https://time.com/6261908/new-york-city-rats-covid-19/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41692812f8c291a9/698a3b0716d884ebbcc3ba16/nyc-rat.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 7952 og:image:height: 4473 og:image:alt: nyc-rat og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: New York City Rats Carry COVID-19, Study Finds twitter:description: They're able to be infected with the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41692812f8c291a9/698a3b0716d884ebbcc3ba16/nyc-rat.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # New York City Rats Carry COVID-19, Study Finds > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Simmone Shah](https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/)  ## Simmone Shah Reporter Mar 10, 2023 6:50 PM UTC  A rat is seen in a street of New York City on Oct. 19, 2022. A rat is seen in a street of New York City on Oct. 19, 2022.Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency—Getty Images  by [Simmone Shah](https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/)  ## Simmone Shah Reporter Mar 10, 2023 6:50 PM UTC A new study has found that not even New York City’s rats are immune to COVID-19\. The [study](https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.03621-22), published in _mBio,_ the American Academy of Microbiology’s journal, found that wild rats in the city’s sewer system and elsewhere in the city have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and demonstrated that rats are susceptible to infection with Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants of the virus. “Our findings highlight the need for further monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in urban rat populations and for evaluating the potential risk of secondary zoonotic transmission from these rat populations back to humans,” the authors wrote in the study. The researchers wanted to understand whether the virus in humans had been transmitted to rats, as well as which variants rats were susceptible to. The team set up two trappings near locations surrounding wastewater systems and captured 79 rats from three sites in and around city parks in Brooklyn in the fall of 2021, when Delta was dominant. **Read More**: [_Why Animals Are Less Vulnerable Than Humans to Omicron_](https://time.com/6203328/animals-covid-19-omicron-ba5/) Thirteen of the rats (about 16%) tested positive for COVID-19, and the researchers used genomic analyses to determine a possible link to the viruses that were circulating in humans during the early stages of the pandemic. “To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to show SARS-CoV-2 variants can cause infections in the wild rat populations in a major U.S. urban area,” said Henry Wan, director of the Center for Influenza and Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Missouri and the study’s principal investigator, in a [news release](https://asm.org/Press-Releases/2023/March/Study-Shows-New-York-City-Rats-Carry-SARS-CoV-2). By giving wild rats samples of different variants through the nose, the researchers also found that Alpha, Delta, and Omicron were able to infect the rats. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [says](https://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/covid-19/index.html) that there is little risk of animals spreading COVID-19 to humans. But Wan said the findings highlight the need for continued monitoring of rats to watch for potential evolution of new strains of the virus that could be a risk to humans. “Overall, our work in this space shows that animals can play a role in pandemics that impact humans, and it’s important that we continue to increase our understanding so we can protect both human and animal health,” he said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6261908/new-york-city-rats-covid-19/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6261908/new-york-city-rats-covid-19/"},"headline":"New York City Rats Carry COVID-19, Study Finds","datePublished":"2023-03-10T18:50:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T15:33:39.404Z","description":"They're able to be infected with the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants.","url":"https://time.com/6261908/new-york-city-rats-covid-19/","keywords":["COVID-19","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41692812f8c291a9/698a3b0716d884ebbcc3ba16/nyc-rat.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Simmone Shah","jobTitle":"Reporter","url":"https://time.com/author/simmone-shah/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt41692812f8c291a9/698a3b0716d884ebbcc3ba16/nyc-rat.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"nyc-rat","caption":"nyc-rat","creditText":"Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6261908/new-york-city-rats-covid-19/","name":"New York City Rats Carry COVID-19, Study Finds"}}]}] ```