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Samples from the animals were sent to Kurt Vandegrift, a disease ecologist at Pennsylvania State University who runs one of the world’s largest wildlife surveillance programs for SARS‐CoV‑2.

They will test whether animals currently carry SARS‐CoV‑2 or have antibodies to it, indicating a past infection.

That will clarify not only the threat SARS‐CoV‑2 poses to wildlife, but also the risk the virus will evolve into new variants that could spill back into humans, igniting new surges of illness.

SARS‐CoV‑2 is known to have spilled over into more than 50 animal species since the start of the pandemic.

At the time, the Omicron variant of SARS‐CoV‑2 was dominant, but the hamsters brought back the earlier Delta variant, not detected in Hong Kong the previous 3 months.