More Animals at Oakland Zoo Have Started Receiving Modified COVID-19 Vaccines There's strong evidence to support that SARS-CoV-2 — the pathogen which causes COVID-19 — has a zoonotic source, meaning it's naturally transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans. And this is exactly why animals at the Oakland Zoo have begun getting inoculated against the disease it causes. SARS-CoV-2 has proven to be highly transmittable across the animal kingdom. Domestic animals like dogs, cats, and rabbits have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past sixteen months; the same can be said about more exotic animals, including tigers, lions, and orangutans; animals belonging to both kinds of fauna classification have died from the disease, though symptoms appear to be milder than in humans.