Steve Lindsay, a public health entomologist at Durham University, is midway through explaining how dogs might play a role in detecting COVID-19 infections when a decidedly less-well trained canine interrupts our conversation.

“If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’ve got a naughty black Labrador out in the back garden doing something it shouldn’t be doing,” Lindsay says. He disappears. I hear barking. He returns accompanied by a chocolate lab. “She’s not as skilled as the detection dogs,” Lindsay says as the pup tries to lick his face. “But it’s really interesting to see how a dog sees the world through its nose. It’s amazing actually.”

It’s that olfactory prowess that could make dogs a useful ally i…