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How monkeys, mice and ferrets are helping scientists to fight coronavirus

But no animal model is perfect. “There’s going to be a need not just for one animal model, but multiple,” says David O’Connor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Monkeys and mice tell researchers different things about infection, shedding light on factors such as the role of the immune system or how the virus spreads. “We can try to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible and integrate that with the emerging volume of data from the clinic,” says O’Connor.