Twitter Rages Over Claim Ministers Planned To Cull Cats In Covid | HuffPost UK Politics https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/twitter-response-government-dead-cat-reaction_uk_6400709ce4b05f1e793da22d
Note that there's no license/registration scheme in the UK for cats. Indoor cats will be hard to locate, and wild cats even harder. The govt *might* have co-opted veterinary records, but that'd turn ugly fast. (Imagine cops breaking down doors to steal kittens from toddlers in order to kill them.) Without hard evidence that cats carried a fatal plague and spread it to people? Mass civil disobedience would ensue, probably with anti-government demonstrations.
@cstross As with so many things in the US, over on this side of the pond it's a very "It depends" kind of thing. Some places (especially cities) have pretty strict policies. The county I live in has no cat licensing (but does have dog licensing); the rules are just broadly "You have to keep its rabies vaccine up-to-date and if you allow it to roam it must be collared with your contact information (along with a heavy dose of "Should anything unfortunate befall the poor creature, the county response shall be a long look down a nose and a 'What did you think was going to happen' stare").
... all that to say any kind of federal mass-extermination campaign would probably be an extremely doomed enterprise logistically, with responses ranging from personal and local uprisings to entire counties embracing a "Yeah, we'll get *right on that*" attitude.
