Culled Mink Corpses Rise From Graves
Earlier this month, Danish government officials announced that about 17 million minks raised on 1,000 farms would have to be culled due to being carriers of a mutated strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, one that has been reported to be less sensitive to antibodies in comparison to the original strain of the coronavirus. Even more so, minks are known to be good virus carriers and spreaders, which caused the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to announce on Wednesday, November 4th, 2020 that the entire stock of the thousand farms would be culled to prevent any spread of the virus.
In fact, this decision came after 5 people were infected by the minks and the Danish government had to share its findings with the World Health Organization so that they could investigate “the epidemiological and virological significance of these findings”, according to TheScientist.
Now, as of 2 days ago, some of the one-metre deep mass graves that were dug for the culled minks were reported to be expelling or pushing out the corpses due to the composting gases that were accumulating in the ground. While Thomas Kristensen, a national police spokesperson says that the gas formation is a natural process following the decaying of living beings, the minks should not have “risen” to surface level. He told state broadcaster DR, “Unfortunately, one metre of soil is not just one metre of soil –it depends on what type of soil it is. The problem is that the sandy soil in West Jutland is too light. So we have had to lay more soil on top.”
However, this is not the end of the concerns in regards to this problem. Due to being buried so close to lakes or underground water reserves, the local media and communities are concerned about the safety of ground and drinking water supplies of the area with people worrying that the reserves could get contaminated.
Stay tuned with Media Quotient Inc. to stay updated on the mink situation in Denmark.
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