The decision came after an employee and customer of pet store Little Boss tested positive. About 150 visitors to the store and twenty employees had to be quarantined immediately.
Eleven hamsters also appear to be infected with the virus. The animals are said to have been imported from the Netherlands. Little Boss customers who bought a hamster after December 22 are now being asked to return their pet so authorities can finish it.
“There is currently no scientific evidence that animals can transmit the coronavirus to humans, but we are still taking precautions to prevent its spread,” said Health Minister Sophia Chan. About 1,000 hamsters from Little Boss pet store and another 1,000 from dozens of nearby pet stores will be killed.
It is not the first time that pets have been killed in China as a result of a corona infection. In November, for example, a corgi was beaten to death by the Chinese health services. In the city of Shangrao, in southeastern Jiangxi province, health workers killed the dog with a crowbar after its owners were quarantined at a hotel due to a corona infection in their apartment building.