More hantavirus cases are expected, WHO chief says

That makes it less likely to become an epidemic.

Your R0 numbers are way way way off. Hantavirus R0 is very unlikely to be as high as 2. It might be 2 \*\*on the current cruise ship\*\* - but that is because Cruise ships are very densely packed with people and a good place for viruses to spread. That's a terrible calculation for the R0 value in the broader population. If Hantavirus is 2 overall - it would have spread significantly over the last decades, because if each ill person gets two more sick - you have a huge epidemic. For example. The R0 for seasonal influenza is estimated to be 1.28, while the pandemic spanish flu outbreak was around 1.8. The 2009 swine flu epidemic (which was estimated to infect between 700 million and 1.4 billion people over the course of a year) was estimated at 1.46. [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4169819/](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4169819/) Your lethality numbers are more accurate, but too high for Covid. Covid lethality in the early stages of the pandemic (before vaccines) was around 0.8-1.2% over the full population, while Hantavirus is \~50% -- so the difference is much bigger than 10.

That’s a good thing. Not only is it self-limiting but people are more likely to take it seriously compared to a disease that isn’t as lethal but rather causes long term damage

I did have similar thoughts about COVID at the end of 2019, I remember when we had our first case in my state I told my friends they had it under control because they knew exactly who he’d been in contact with and he was quarantining. Boy was I wrong. The difference here is there have been small outbreaks of Andes hantavirus in the past and they haven’t resulted in a global pandemic, and there’s no indication that this strain has mutated from what I can tell

I'm just a random guy on the Internet, so take this with a grain of salt. The problem with how COVID-19 was handled is rather than advising the public to err on the side of caution while data was being gathered, scientists and officials dismissed potential risks. They initially thought that COVID-19 can only be spread by symptomatic people, then favored the large-droplet theory over aerosol transmission, and then they discouraged the general public to wear masks by citing a lack of evidence that they work. Receipts: WHO expert backtracks after saying asymptomatic transmission 'very rare' > Modelling studies estimate that up to 40% of coronavirus infections could be transmitted by people who have the virus but no symptoms, a World Health Organization expert has acknowledged after her comment on Monday that asymptomatic transmission was “very rare” caused a stir. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/who-expert-backtracks-after-saying-asymptomatic-transmission-very-rare Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne > Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. That mistake and the prolonged process of correcting it sowed confusion and raises questions about what will happen in the next pandemic. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 World Health Organization officials Monday said they still recommend people not wear face masks unless they are sick with Covid-19 or caring for someone who is sick. > "There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit." https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd Edit: Bonus receipt: > At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) explicitly advised against closing borders and banning international travel

Not all viruses are the same, some are incredibly stable. This is just fearmongering

A 40% mortality rate can change minds *very* quickly. COVID killed a lot of people because a 1% mortality was easy to brush off as "special cases" for the average person.

I'm guessing it could be like early covid tracing, you test anyone (symptoms or not) close to a person who tests positive. But then, early covid tracing wasn't that successful, as we know.

The thing is that most people's social networks, even people that travel are relatively stable, and if there's a low transmission rate, a disease just can't sustain transmission. All that is out the window when disparate groups of people spend time outside their typical social network in close contact with others, then go back to their usual habits after. This is why people are sick at the start of the school year, why "festival flu" is a thing, why a lot of people get sick on vacation, why norovirus seems to hit certain places on the regular. These types of events sustain spread of disease where otherwise it would burn out.

*Quaranta giorni or 40 days. Not sure how effective it actually was, against the plague.*

Which should go without saying because of the incubation period.

Andes Virus Haplotype(s) CHI-Hu13724 in comparison to previously known Andes Virus Haplotypes: * Is the first Andes Virus haplotype identified in 20 years * Has increased silent spreading capabilities * Is less lethal Source: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41070183/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41070183/) Disclaimer: Which haplotype we are currently dealing with is not publicly known. Given the possible new silent spreading capabilities of the virus, could it already be widespread in parts of South America? My observation is the people who have died have been elderly. Harvard Professor Joseph Allen, an expert in exposure assessment science, recently stated that official public messaging regarding hantavirus transmission—specifically the emphasis on "prolonged contact"—contradicts established scientific evidence. Source: [https://www.ms.now/news/hantavirus-outbreak-mv-hondius-cruise-ship-transmission-risk-public-health](https://www.ms.now/news/hantavirus-outbreak-mv-hondius-cruise-ship-transmission-risk-public-health)

It's a f****** class 4 virus, the same category as Ebola and Marburg.  They shouldn't have been allowed to leave anywhere.

> something has changed People were in a cruise ship for a month, that's what's changed. If you only ever looked at norovirus on cruise ships and based your knowledge on that you'd expect it to be a pandemic that makes each and every one of us sick with norovirus multiple times per year. And even then in this case we've got 150 people that were stuck in the same boat for a month and only like 10 people have so far been confirmed with having it. They were in ideal conditions for the virus to spread and it still didn't spread that much. Nothing about this is unusual so far. Including the virus. It hasn't mutated. This has been confirmed.

\>We can contain it if people are responsible and we will still see cases but we can’t ignore it either. well.... last time we got people licking grocery store stuff.

While true, hanta is not very good at mutating (unlike coronavirii and influenzas).

This one has never been seen mutate like that in 28 years, and it's already been confirmed that it's not even a mutation of the birthday party strain. It's still that same virus.

While technicely true hantaviruaes dont mutate the same way corona or flu viruses do. Also the market that spawned covid probably gave thousand of people corona viruses before ot mutated and corona viruses mutate a lot.

It wasn't them not staying in it was the damn spring break trips and ski trips.

It can also be transmitted through prolonged exposure in enclosed spaces. Riding in an elevator with someone? Unlikely. Sharing the same space at dinner, evening entertainment, and the same air-conditioned space while traveling in a large metal box for a couple weeks? More likely. Being in the same cabin sleeping night after night? Welp. But also, people cough or sneeze and then touch things. Other people touch those things and then touch their faces. Small area = more chances of repeated exposure.

This is my concern. Transmission rate seems high. 147 people on that boat. 11 confirmed cases. 7.4% transmission rate so far. The average rate for Andes is 1-10% in close quarters (same household) but in the past has been 0% for casual contact. Cruise ships are close quarters. But unless the ship had an unknown rat infestation or was a swingers cruise… that transmission rate concerns me. This isn’t fear mongering. It’s not over reacting. It’s watching the data that we do have and being cautious.