As New York City continues its phased re-opening, more New Yorkers have been out in the streets and returning to their favorite restaurants (for outside dining only). That means more garbage—and more garbage means rats can return to their normal routine of coming out at night to dine on our refuse. 

Dr. Bobby Corrigan is an urban rodentologist. At the height of the pandemic in New York City, he got numerous calls from friends who wanted to tell him about this weird thing they saw a rat doing.

“You wouldn't believe what’s going on outside my condominium, it’s kind of crazy I hear screaming rats down in the street,” Corrigan recounted.  He described one phone call saying: “I’m watching rats, I never seen them play in the park before, they’re wrestling, they’re playing it looks like they’re happy.’ I said, trust me, they’re not playing, somebody is going to be killed shortly and eaten!”

Corrigan is a consultant who has worked with cities on rat management all over the country, including here in New York City where he lives.  And for him and other scientists who study rats, behavior like this is nothing new. Fighting and infanticide are just a few normal responses to a food shortage. 

“It’s Biology 101,” Corrigan said. “Any mammals, if you take the food away you’re going to have abnormal behavior show up really quick.”

Jason Munshi-South teaches evolutionary biology to freshmen at Fordham University. He said one fact about rats is key to understanding their behavior: they’re homebodies. 

“Urban rats actually use only a very small area around where they were born throughout their lifetime, think one city block.”

And they live right by their food supply, which here in the city is an all-you-can-eat garbage buffet. 

“Think about a block with a lot of restaurants,” Munshi-South said. ”There would have been trash on the street nearly every night, it would have been basically predictable.”

“They absolutely know when garbage day is for their local colony,” added Corrigan. 

But when the pandemic hit, the regular supply of garbage that rats rely on for food in certain neighborhoods slowed to a trickle almost overnight. A block with a lot of restaurants and a lot of garbage might support a huge colony of rats. Now those rats need to seek out food elsewhere. And rats are territorial, so with large numbers on the move, conflicts with other colonies are inevitable.  

The Department of Health and Human Hygiene said the number of 311 calls about rats dropped significantly this March, April, and May compared to last year. The decline in complaints may be because people have been staying in more and therefore spotting fewer rats.

But Corrigan has another idea. The rats may have gone underground. “Some of them may have only dropped down to the sewer. A lot of food floats by in the sewers, a lot of people flush things down the toilet, smelly fish pieces and parts of vegetables, even feces.”

Munshi-South suggested that the lockdown could have caused an overall drop in the rat population. “I think that depends on how long this goes on, but I think it has already gone on long enough that there may have been a decrease. You know rats can respond really quickly to food supply so if there’s less food they’re not going to reproduce as much.” 

But by the same logic, as restaurants open up again and the amount of garbage in certain neighborhoods increases, the rats’ numbers will ramp up. 

“They have evolved to turn food into babies very rapidly,” said Munshi-South. “So gestation is about 3 weeks, when the rats are born it’s only 5-6 weeks before those rats that are born become sexually mature, you know a single female rat if she’s in good condition can have 4 or five litters a year. So I guess my bottom line is I don’t think this lockdown is going to result in any kind of decrease in the rat population for any long period of time."

But it might be a good time to double down on rat control efforts.

“We should capitalize on this time to put out whatever baits and traps and clean up as best as we can,” wondered Corrigan.  “And, hopefully the lesson we learned in part from this pandemic is we need to be cleaner.”

No matter how much a municipality spends on rat control, it only takes a few badly managed garbage areas to feed the rats. “When you take your trash out, ask yourself, ‘do I do my trash in a way that a rat can’t get to it?’ said Corrigan. “Period. Yes or no? It’s a simple question.” 

“The rats are going to take advantage of sloppiness wherever it occurs,” he pointed out. “Parks, subway, alleys, residents, houses, hotels, hospitals—rats are like ‘show us the slobs and we will show you where we’re gonna set up shop!’”

SARS-CoV-2 originally jumped from animals to humans. So too did the virus responsible for SARS and MERS. There is now abundant evidence that humans can transmit SARS-Cov-2 to domestic pets and other animals. The more people infected the greater the risk of creating a permanent animal reservoir of infection; one that may pose a threat for generations.

Humans can infect other animals with the Covid-19 virus. Human can infect cats and dogs, lions and tigers, and now mink. Infected tigers can transmit the virus to lions. Min can transmit SARS-Cov-2 for one to another with devastating effects on entire colonies. Now it appears at least some animals can give the virus right back to us in what I call viral ping-pong.  

Beginning early April 2020, large scale infections occurred in at least two mink farms in the Netherlands. Sequence analysis of the viral genes showed that while the virus spread rapidly within farms, even among animals housed in separate cages, it did not spread between farms. Subsequent studies showed that cats in and around the mink farms were also infected. Whether all cats were infected by contact with mink feces or respiratory droplets or infected by contact with one another is not known. 

Then came the discovery that two mink farmworkers were infected. Genome sequencing established that the virus jumped back into humans from the infected mink

What are the implications of intraspecies jumps? SARS-CoV-2 can infect mink, domestic cats and dogs, ferrets hamsters, tigers, lions, and bats and macaque monkeys. There is some evidence that pigs, mice, and rats may also be able to be infected. Likely, wild species closely related to these animals can also be infected including coyotes, wild dogs, feral feline species, wild boar, pangolins, and civets. With time I am certain that the list will grow.  

Should we worry about being infected by our pets and livestock? Perhaps. Soon more than ten million people worldwide will have been infected, each a possible source of animal infection. We know that the virus can jump from animals to humans, that is presumably how both SARS and Covid-19 infections began. Camels continue to infect humans with MERS eight years after the first cases were reported. We are fortunate that the MERS virus spreads slowly from person to person.  

There are too many unknowns to estimate the degree of risk of human infection from animal reservoirs of Covid-19. We do not know the efficiency of transmission for humans to animals although it appears to be low for dogs and cats. We do not know the efficiency of transmission between animals, although we have seen that for mink animal to animal transmission can be very efficient. We are uncertain about the routes of infection, whether it is airborne, oral/fecal, contaminated water, or all three. We are still learning about all the different types of animals that can be infected and transmit the virus back to us.  

What is clear is that there is a very real possibility that SARS-CoV-2 may establish deep reservoirs of infection in our pets, livestock, and feral animals that live around us. It is time to begin detailed surveillance of animal populations for evidence of infection. It may be time to be wary not only of our fellow humans but our pets and livestock as potential dangers.

Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus

Going into 2020, leaders across the logistics industry knew innovation would be paramount to refining and expanding operations. Growing demand for e-commerce, stiffer competition in more markets, increasingly tight margins... these offered plenty of motivation. And then we were all hit with one of the biggest surprises and challenges of our professional lives: the novel Coronavirus.

COVID-19 has since affected the logistics industry in different ways, in different places—and at different points in the supply chain—from month to month. According to the Logistics Managers’ Index (LMI) —which is based on 8 unique components that involve inventory (levels and costs), warehousing (capacity, utilization, and prices) and transportation (capacity, utilization, and prices)—the LMI score for April 2020 fell to an all-time low. Sure, seeing warehouse capacity, transportation utilization, and transportation prices contract during a pandemic isn’t surprising. But decreased demand for transportation, along with high inventories and high demand for warehousing, underscores the crucial need for visibility and traceability from end-to-end across the supply chain.

Virus or no virus, connected devices drive better decision-making

Pandemic aside, most logistics industry leaders would agree visibility has increased in recent years—and I bet even more would now agree there’s room for improvement. Across the industry, Internet of Things (IoT) devices are growing in utility¹ and usage.² Connected devices provide logistics companies with line-of-sight to assets in transit, the ability to monitor cold chain conditions and track utilization across the entire ecosystem, and much more. And at the core of these advancements are a few key technology categories that help support supply chain continuity now and are poised to accelerate those operations in a post-COVID world.

IoT: Allied Market Research estimates that global IoT spending in the transportation market is set to more than double by 2023, with expenditure expected to reach nearly $330 billion. That spending growth will continue, even as IoT sensor and controller costs decline rapidly with mass production and economies of scale.³ Lower prices mean more devices—and these devices will likely be everywhere inside and outside vehicles, in shipping containers, and on pallets. What won’t be everywhere are Wi-Fi networks, which can quickly degrade as more sensors are added. In addition, while Wi-Fi can offer a larger range than cellular, it’s also more easily obstructed by obstacles and can see connectivity rapidly decline if devices leave a designated area. On the other hand, cellular networks are better suited to this environment due to underlying protocols and hardware designed for such uses.⁴

Choosing between Wi-Fi and cellular for your IoT project will depend largely on the priorities of your device and what it’ll be used for. For example, if security is a primary concern, enterprises may lean toward cellular networks as they’re generally held to a higher security standard than public Wi-Fi networks. Logistics companies need a reliable wireless network that can reach all corners of the country to keep their devices in contact with each other. Nationwide cellular networks deliver.

Narrowband IoT: Another recent advancement that’s driving increased visibility, especially in remote areas, is the Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) standard. The GSMA describes NB-IoT as a “standards-based low power wide area (LPWA) technology developed to enable a wide range of new IoT devices and services” which “significantly improves the power consumption of user devices, system capacity, and spectrum efficiency, especially in deep coverage.”⁵

For instance, when a company deploys thousands or tens of thousands of asset trackers, device and service costs can add up quickly. Not to mention, the bigger the battery, the bigger the asset tracker and the harder it is to keep it operational, especially for returnable assets like racks, cages, and containers. NB-IoT offers the most efficient, cost-effective option for nationwide asset tracking and enables extended battery life for devices—up to 10 years—with expansive coverage to reach rural sites and deep indoor locations. And for companies concerned about keeping their connected devices secure, cellular networks offer telecom-grade security advantages over technologies operating on unlicensed airwaves like LoRAN or Sigfox.

Asset Tracking: As Vidya Subramanian, VP of Products at Roambee, puts it, “Knowing in real time where the product is makes all the difference between spoilage and delivery.”

Asset tracking on a cellular-based NB-IoT network allows logistics companies to track and manage assets across each warehouse, trailer, or container—even down to a single parcel. This enables both high-level and fine-grain visibility into your logistics processes. In light of what we now know about COVID-19 and how it’s transmitted, ensuring packaging integrity and safety from the factory loading dock to the customer is just as important as getting a product there efficiently. With this line-of-sight, teams can proactively prevent disruptions or quickly adjust their approach if issues arise.⁶ It’s no wonder the asset tracking market is expected to almost double to $32 billion by 2024.⁷

Fleet Management Solutions: The latest advances in IoT and connected sensors have greatly elevated the capabilities of asset monitoring systems, which can now offer a much broader range of information about the location and status of the trailer as well as the condition of cargo inside. Armed with that data, fleet managers have much greater visibility into vehicle operations. Whether focusing on hours-of-service (HOS) compliance, managing available freight capacity, maximizing fuel efficiency, or identifying preventative maintenance, dispatchers and drivers alike will have the data required to set themselves up for success.

This improved access to data and insights can also help to reduce costs and improve the bottom line. For instance, input-output expanders (IOX) can monitor individual parts of your vehicles, such as tire pressure sensors. These devices can provide component-level insights about problems like underinflated tires, which in addition to improving driver safety, can also increase the vehicle’s fuel consumption by up to 15%.⁸

Data-driven opportunities at every step of the supply chain

The greater the visibility into transport and logistics processes, the greater amount of data produced. With thousands, if not millions, of sensors generating data at each stage of transport, the sheer amount of data to be processed becomes a central challenge.

Fortunately, advancements in cloud technologies have made it easier to manage troves of data by offering new, more robust cloud-based software solutions. Automated analytics have been revolutionized by cloud-based processing, which is now being improved by shifting to edge computing. This involves collecting and assessing data at the sensor, device, or touchpoint itself rather than waiting for it to be sent back to a cloud or on-premises server.⁹ Thus, instead of having a sensor that merely gathers data and relays it to the cloud, the device itself can directly turn that data into actionable information that can be processed and quickly acted upon. Scaling this across an entire connected logistics process creates previously impossible visibility within your operations, shedding light on opportunities for both insight and efficiency.

By processing data closer to the source, traffic to the cloud can be substantially reduced—up to 99.8% in some instances.¹⁰ For logistics companies, there’s a double benefit: the possibility of reduced cloud hosting costs and faster insights. And, with the potential of 5G, these insights will one day be able to be acted on automatically. For example, imagine a future where a damaged track will instantly trigger freight trains to re-route, communicating with impacted trains without human intervention. Or imagine how truck routes will be optimized on the fly as weather sensors along roads detect a sudden change that could create delays. These sensors could re-route one truck or an entire fleet as needed to optimize service without jeopardizing on-time delivery.

The future of logistics is wicked smart

It’s likely too early to know all the impacts of COVID-19 on logistics but there’s a good chance U.S. companies continue the multi-year trend in logistics spending.¹¹ According to a team of researchers at MIT, “supply chain visibility is a surefire way for companies to gain consumer trust and can even lead to increased sales from certain customers.”¹² If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that consumer trust and business continuity means more than ever. And for some businesses, the time to act is now or never.

Like this article? Check out 9 ways IoT-enabled sensors can make you more efficient.