FWIW here is an FAQ from the USDA/APHIS [1], which has some relevant clarifications pertaining to the paper:
- "Could the deer spread the virus to people? There is no evidence that animals, including deer, are playing a significant role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to people."
- "Do deer show clinical signs of illness? This was not the focus of our study. However, there were no reports of clinical illness associated with SARS-CoV-2 in the deer populations we surveyed, and clinical signs of SARS-CoV-2 have not been observed in wild white-tailed deer. In addition, captive deer experimentally infected with SARS-CoV-2 as part of a USDA Agricultural Research Service study did not show clinical signs of illness."
Unfortunately, in the world of emerging risks, it's not sufficient to base decisionmaking merely off of evidence, though that comes with some nuance.
If there is strong evidence that some phenomena cannot occur (e.g., that there's an inherent barrier to deer-to-deer or deer-to-human transmission), then any further human risk is slight. If however there's merely a lack of evidence of various forms of transmission, then we can't be assured that there is no such transmission. (This was the case with airborne-transmission of COVID-19, early in the pandemic, where "no evidence" was broadly interpreted as "not possible", incorrectly as it turned out.)
I'll also note that the lack of symptomatic illness among deer does not mean that the virus doesn't spread and propagate within and from the deer population.
- "Could the deer spread the virus to people? There is no evidence that animals, including deer, are playing a significant role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to people."
- "Do deer show clinical signs of illness? This was not the focus of our study. However, there were no reports of clinical illness associated with SARS-CoV-2 in the deer populations we surveyed, and clinical signs of SARS-CoV-2 have not been observed in wild white-tailed deer. In addition, captive deer experimentally infected with SARS-CoV-2 as part of a USDA Agricultural Research Service study did not show clinical signs of illness."
[1] https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/one_health/download...