NATION
Blame COVID-19 for
a travel ban on dogs
Marine Sergeant John Weldon
was deployed in Syria when a local
left a days-old puppy at his military
base in mid-May. To save the new-
born, which was barely bigger than a
human hand, the infantryman nursed
him every two to three hours with a
mixture of condensed milk, egg yolk,
water and yogurt, using a medical
breathing tube and a syringe.
The two had bonded by the time the
Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention (CDC) announced that starting
in July, dogs from more than 100 coun-
tries, including Syria, would be banned
from entering the U.S. for at least a year
due to rabies concerns. In January, the
ban will become tighter as the num-
ber of airports accepting overseas dogs
drops from 18 to three: Los Angeles,
Atlanta and New York.
“I just want to get my dog home,”
says Weldon, 30, who was pulled out
of Syria in August, before he could
arrange transport for the puppy he
named Sully. He’s now home in Cali-
fornia while SPCA International cares
for Sully overseas.
Like many of life’s disruptions over
the past 20 months, the pandemic is
largely responsible for the predica-
ment facing Weldon and countless
other humans and animals. In 2020,
as U.S. pet adoptions emptied shel-
ters, sellers overseas capitalized on
the demand and sent over hundreds of
puppies with falsified vaccination re-
cords, according to the CDC. In June,
a rescue dog flown in from Azerbaijan
with undetected rabies made its way
to a family in Pennsylvania, where it
came into contact with at least a dozen
people before testing positive and
being euthanized, ofcials say. The in-
cident sparked the largest multi state
rabid-dog-import investigation in U.S.
history.
The dog travel ban is meant to pre-
vent people and pets from canine ra-
bies, a fatal fast-spreading variant for
which there is no cure. Globally, dog
rabies kills about one person every
nine minutes, says Dr. Emily Pieracci , a
veterinary epidemiologist with the
CDC. (It’s less feared in the U.S., where
it’s been eliminated since 2007, but
just one infected dog could undo de-
cades of progress, while creating a cas-
cade of new public-health risks.)
There are some exceptions. On an
“extremely limited basis,” the CDC
says it would issue import permits to
allow Americans to fly in dogs from
high-risk nations. But applying for
them has not been easy. “The applica-
tion is extremely vague and frustrat-
ing,” Weldon says, having twice been
rejected despite having help from
SPCA International, which has re-
united more than 1,200 pets with sol-
diers over the past 13 years. But he is
undeterred. “The unconditional love
a dog gives you is unlike any other,”
Weldon says. “I won’t ever quit.”
—MeliSSa ChanWORLD
Russia’s anti satellitetest threatens ISSthe ruSSian Military ConduCted
a missile test on Nov. 15 that obliter-
ated a dead satellite and generateda cloud of debris in outer space that
forced astronauts aboard the Inter-
national Space Station (ISS) to tem-
porarily take shelter. As thousands of
pieces of the satellite began to spread,
the U.S., German and Russian astro-
nauts aboard were instructed to climb
into their Soyuz and Dragon capsules
in case they needed to evacuate.
Brian Weeden, a former Air Force
ofcer and expert in space security
at the Secure World Foundation,
said the situation could have been
“catastrophic” because of the high
speeds involved. Objects in space
tear through the cosmos at up to
17,500 m.p.h., which means that even
a marble-size piece of debris poses
a danger. “A collision with an object
several centimeters in size or higher
could rupture the space station, po-
tentially harming or endangering as-
tronauts on board,” Weeden explains.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
told reporters Russia’s anti satellite
(ASAT) test was “an irresponsible act”
that indicated a troubling trend. “We△
Seven astronauts aboard the
International Space Station
sought cover from debris22 tiMe December 6/December 13, 2021