Damas et al. (2020) showed a high degree of sequence identity between human and white-tailed deer angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) proteins12, and experimental infection studies demonstrated that the (Wuhan-Hu-1 strain)-like SARS-CoV-2 virus can readily infect white-tailed deer and lead to high loads of viral shedding and onward spread to naïve conspecifics13–15. The gene discussed is ACE2; the disease is infection.