8 rhesus monkeys got loose in Mississippi.
No that’s not the beginning of a joke, a truck carrying the monkeys got overturned and the monkeys got out, and unfortunately for them the misinformed truck driver told the police that the monkeys had Covid, hepatitis C and herpes. The police immediately hunted down and shot 5 of them, and now three are left still loose.
“I hate it got to the point that it did,” Sheriff Randy Johnson of Jasper County, Miss said. “We were told they were highly infectious, dangerous to the public. We reacted on the information that we were given at the time.”
Twenty-one rhesus monkeys were aboard the truck when it overturned, because the driver had fallen asleep. It is unclear as to where the monkeys were being taken at the time of the crash.
“Nonhuman primates at the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center are provided to other research organizations to advance scientific discovery,” the university transporting the monkeys said.
For now the three remaining monkeys are at large.