COVIDYSTOPIA- April 18, 2022 AD (Somewhere in an Indian city, around 3pm)
Little Z froze when she saw it jump into the backyard. Their eyes locked. She screamed and the frightened animal leaped back into the woods behind.
Mother came running and found Z in tears. “Mummy, a cat came”, she sobbed. Her mother hugged little Z close, as she sobbed for a while and slept. Her mother checked the CCTV footage and dialled the emergency hotline.
Humankind's relationship with cats had changed forever when it was found that they were prime vectors of the 2020 pandemic flu. A worldwide culling of cats thus began. It ended a few months later, after the discovery of a vaccine which needed cat embryos. By this time, cats had become rarer than red pandas.
Any feral cat sightings were to be reported to the authorities these days.
(Disclaimer – this is fiction, exploring the what-ifs, post pandemic)