There's a real question right now about the virus being transmissible from human to dogs/cats and from them to humans.
Quarantining your pet or you from your pet presents some real problems, just logistically...never mind the lack of interaction on an emotional level for them and you.
But that could be a moot point. This is a dangerous situation after all. If it is in fact likely that human/pet transmission is possible, if you have the virus you are a risk to all, even your pet...and if your pet if it gets the virus, it too is a risk to all. That pet would need to be tested. You would take it to get tested, right?
If it tested positive, well, they might just have to keep it. or destroy it. There is no way for them to know if you are or are not a responsible owner. What if you let it out of the house from time to time, or it runs away. There's a lot of irresponsible pet owners out there, and accidents can happen, even to responsible ones. We can't have animals running through the place licking things, coughing on things, touching things, interacting with strays that do the same. A lose dog or cat can cover far more distance than a human, and cannot understand social distancing or even the most basic of preventative hygiene.
Can you even fathom the amount of viral matter a dog's wet nose will leave behind if even lose for a few hours? Or the viral debris left behind by a cat in the same period of time?
It's not worth the risk to human lives. After all you've done so far, the face masks, the sheltering in place, the closing of businesses...to have all that superseded by a few infected animals getting lose, interacting with strays who have no home.
Whatever you think of the value of your pet...it being part of the family and so forth, the WHO will not share that view.
They would decree that authorities have to keep that animal and probably destroy it. and if you were so irresponsible as to not get it tested or come forward...perhaps someone you mentioned it to would report you out of fear or civic duty. Or someone so terrified by the covid situation would notice something off and just report the possibility.
Ah, don't get all worked up, this is all just a mental exercise, a hypothetical situation.
They can't just take your pet, you have property rights. And they certainly can't just walk into your home and test your animal on some anonymous phone call. That'd be illegal search and seizure. The constitution has specific sections devoted to protecting your rights, public health crisis or not.
oh...ops.
Ah, doesn't matter, eventually many of you won't be able to afford to feed your pets anyhow.
Those of you still alive...it's the middle of April now and the projections told us that even with the extreme measures we've taken there are about a million of us dead already. Let me just check the numbers here...huh... it's about 20,000. I thought a million had seven digits? Like a million would be 1,000,000. That 20,000 must be a typo. They couldn't POSSIBLY have gotten it this wrong, they're experts!