Efforts to Contain Coronavirus Helping Slow Influenza

A Veterinary Pathologist with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine says efforts to contain the spread of Coronavirus are helping slow the movement of influenza among both people and pigs. The Western College of Veterinary Medicine has completed a summary of seasonal influenza over the past two years.

 

Dr. Susan Detmer, an Associate Professor in the Department of Veterinary Pathology with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, says COVID-19 has presented an interesting scenario.

 

 

With less movement of people, even between the provinces in Canada, we're actually seeing less disease and less transmission. There's still movements of pigs and we do see viruses move with the movement of pigs. We are seeing that happen, The viruses are on these farms so they're not going to just disappear.

 

But we do expect to see less influenza in people so long as they're doing their social distancing, they're not interacting with large groups, they're not travelling on planes. All of that is going to hopefully benefit the pigs this fall. We'll see what happens but it is something that some of us are keeping an eye on because, this time of year it's southern hemisphere.

 

Australia, South America, those areas where flu is transmitting still because it's their winter time, what comes back to us come next fall, we'll if that is any different. If there's less virus being transmitted in Australia because they're trying to stop the Coronavirus from transmitting as well, then we could actually have a better fall flu season because people are not interacting at the levels that they normally would.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.