Do mosquitoes carry the coronavirus? And if so, can they transmit it to humans and infect a person with COVID-19?

Short answer: it’s unlikely. Official guidance from the World Health Organization(WHO)says there’s no information or evidence to suggest that the new coronavirus could be transmitted through mosquito bites.

For starters, the coronavirus is a respiratory virus. 【小题1】For a mosquito to become infected with a virus, it must be present in the blood the mosquito feeds on. “The virus that causes COVID-19 is a respiratory virus that is almost exclusively contained within the lungs and respiratory tract of infected people, and rarely gets into the blood,” Emily Gallichotte, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of microbiology, immunology, and pathology at Colorado State University, tells Health.

【小题2】Neither the new coronavirus nor any other type of coronavirus has been shown to do that. “It’s quite a complex process,” former US Navy entomologist Joseph M. Conlon, who has extensive worldwide experience in mosquito control and is technical advisor to the American Mosquito Control Association(AMCA), tells Health. “First of all, the mosquito would have to pick up the requisite amount of virus during its bite. The virus must then not only survive the digestive process, but replicate within the mosquito and pass through the gut wall to the coelom(main body cavity)of the mosquito.” From there it must make its way to the salivary glands and be expressed by the mosquito as part of its salivary secretions.

“Furthermore, mosquitoes are very genetically different from humans. 【小题3】”We have different receptors on the surface of cells and different replication machinery inside our cells,” says Gallichotte.

Relatively few human viruses have the ability to infect both humans and mosquitoes. “The vast majority of human viruses have been infecting humans for a very very long time, and even though many of these end up in our blood, they are still unable to infect mosquitoes,” says Gallichotte. “Conversely, there are many mosquito viruses that are unable to infect humans, or any mammals. There are no known coronaviruses that can infect mosquitoes.”

“So it’s pretty clear that COVID-19 is the last thing you should be worrying about if a mosquito has been feasting on your leg. Keep swatting them away, though.” 【小题4】 “Studies have shown that factors contributing to potentially serious or fatal outcomes attendant to COVID-19 infection involve underlying medical issues, such as neurologic conditions that weaken the ability to cough or an already stressed immune system due to concurrent infection by mosquito-borne viruses,” he says.

Mr Smith made many tests (作试验) with different animals and the monkey was the cleverest of all the animals. One day Mr Smith put a monkey in a room. He also put some small boxes in it. In one of the boxes there was some food. " How long will it take the monkey to find the food? " Mr Smith said to himself. " Let me wait and see. " He left the room and waited outside. Three minutes later, he put his eye to the keyhole (钥匙眼). What did he see? He saw the eye of the monkey. The monkey was on the other side of the door and looked at Mr Smith through the keyhole.

When was the last time you saw some dolphins at an aquarium? Was the scene fun to watch? Do you think the dolphins enjoyed it? A film shows just exactly where some of these dolphins come from. And it isn’t pleasant.

The Cove is a documentary film with a lot of blood — dolphin blood. It’s all about dolphin drive hunting, which is a method of hunting dolphins that fishermen use. They use boats to drive the dolphins into a bay or onto a beach. Once there, the dolphins are prevented from escaping and are then killed in the water with knives or spears.

The dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat, but some are captured and end up in dolphinariums, including the world-famous SeaWorld theme parks. This form of dolphin killing takes place in many places around the world. There is dolphin drive hunting in the Solomon Islands, Peru and the Faroe Islands.

The Cove focuses on the particular dolphin hunting near the town of Taiji in Japan.

Every year, more than 2,000 dolphins are driven into a cove near the town and killed. The documentary film was directed by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos, and was made secretly throughout 2007 using underwater microphones and a hidden camera. Also appearing in the film was Ric O’Barry, the director of saving Japan dolphins, and also a marine mammal expert. He trained dolphins for the popular 1960s TV series Flipper. He is praised for having started the dolphin entertainment industry but has spent most of his life fighting against it.

So what do the people of Taiji think about it? Many feel that they are being unfairly selected out. The town of Taiji has a 400-year history of whale and dolphin hunting and its fishermen only catch about 20% of Japan's yearly dolphin quota (定额).

Masashi Nishimura, manager of the Japan Fisheries Association’s International section, said, “I don't think it’s a big topic here. As long as the killing is humane (人道的), dolphins are like other animals to us.”

But for many people, dolphins are special. They are clearly highly intelligent mammals and they often form strong bonds of friendship with humans. Primates, such as chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans are all protected species. Should these levels of protection be extended to marine mammals too? Many believe they should.