CNN: Hantavirus is not Covid-19, but ‘calm-mongering’ risks triggering post-Covid anxiety
Federal officials say the risk to the public remains low as investigators assess possible person-to-person spread and expect more cases to be identified.
- On Sunday, 18 passengers returned to the United States from the cruise ship Hondius, where HHS announced one person tested 'mildly PCR positive' for the Andes strain of hantavirus.
- Unlike typical hantavirus infections from rat droppings, the Andes strain transmits between humans; WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted Thursday that transmission requires 'close and prolonged contact.'
- Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo of the Brown University Pandemic Center explained the virus's incubation period can reach two months, providing a 'runway to try to find somebody' exposed before symptoms develop.
- Monday, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said 'We have this under control,' yet crisis communication expert Peter Sandman warned overly confident messaging risks undermining public trust.
- Both the CDC and the World Health Organization maintain the risk to the general public remains low, though officials expect more cases to be identified as contact tracing continues.
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The Citizen
For hantavirus, experts aim to inform without igniting Covid panic
Thrust back into the front line by a deadly hantavirus outbreak, infectious disease experts have to balance informing the public about its potential risks without provoking undue fear of a Covid-scale pandemic. The deaths of three cruise ship passengers during a rare hantavirus outbreak has sparked international alarm — and flashbacks to when the world tipped into a pandemic six years ago. Among the living, seven people have been confirmed to ha…
Baptist Health Paducah urges hygiene to reduce hantavirus anxiety
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently stated that the threat to the public remains extremely low, the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak has left people on high alert due to lingering anxieties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Is hantavirus a pandemic risk? Medical experts discuss comparison to COVID-19
The spread of hantavirus on a Dutch cruise ship and beyond has produced imagery of health officials in personal protective equipment, masked and quarantined patients and constant coverage by national news outlets with a stark resemblance to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.The similarity hasn't gone unnoticed, so WCPO wanted to answer one question: Is this anything like what happened in 2019 and 2020?We reached out to Dr. Daliah Wachs to g…
Hantavirus will test if the world learned anything from Covid
The cruise ship MV Hondius, initial site of the hantavirus outbreak. | Europa Press via Getty Images Almost as soon as the hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius became international news, public health experts rushed to assuage the public: This is not Covid-19. Don’t worry — this is a virus that requires “close contact” to spread. The risk of a pandemic is quite low. But if this apparent certainty from public health leaders amid ano…
Hantavirus is not Covid-19, but ‘calm-mongering’ risks triggering post-Covid anxiety
Since the first sign of an outbreak, the reminders have come from government officials, health agencies and plenty of experts: There’s no reason to worry. Don’t panic. It’s under control.
Paris (France), 13 May 2026 (AFP) – Inform without panic: infectiouss, virologists and other epidemiologists, back in the foreground since the emergence of the hantavirus, are working to communicate, with the help of experience from the traumatizing pandemic of Covid-19. Since the detection of a foyer of hantavirus on the cruise ship MV Hondius, causing three deaths [...] The Hantavirus article: for experts, the challenge to inform without awake…
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