Hantavirus panic and the CDC's silence

Both things trouble me

Back in late 2019, I was following the spread of a new virus, SARS-CoV-2, as it made its way from China to the United States. By March, 2020, I was the one unlucky enough to present the briefing on what was named COVID-19 to our senior management. The news was grim: the R₀ value, which is the number of predicted infections from a single infected human, was above 2.0, meaning it was going to spread exponentially through the country, which in fact it did. The biggest question was if COVID-19 could spread by aerosol, in the air, which it generally cannot¹. It requires some kind of touch. By contrast, Measles spreads in the air, and has an R₀ above 12, putting emotional weight behind the word “virulent”.

Hantavirus has been around for thousands of years. It is spread by rats. Most strains cannot spread to humans from other humans. There is one known Hantavirus strain, the Andes, which can spread between humans, but it requires prolonged physical contact, or intimate contact. The problem is that Hantavirus in humans makes us very sick; there’s a name for the sickness: Hantavirus Cardiopulmonary Syndrome. It is very deadly, killing up to half of those infected. If a person contracts Hantavirus, that is a very serious medical condition requiring immediate hospitalization.

The R₀ of Hantavirus is way below 1, closer to zero. That means the number of people who are infected by a symptomatic Hantavirus sufferer is very low. The deadliness of the virus contributes to its low R₀ value: those infected are too sick to walk around spreading it, or they die before they can infect too many others.

That doesn’t mean Hantavirus isn’t of some concern. But it does mean that the panic I’m seeing over this outbreak on a small cruise ship is way overblown by the media. The outbreak occurred on the MV Hondius, which was an expedition vessel, not the kind of pleasure cruise we think of when we hear “cruise” (like Carnival or Royal Caribbean). There were fewer than 150 passengers on the MV Hondius, and they slept in bunk beds, ate all their meals buffet-style, and generally stayed together as a group for all planned activities. In other words, MV Hondius was a perfect environment for Hantavirus Andes strain to spread: isolated, in constant close contact, for long periods.

Even in this environment, the virus infected less than 10 people on the MV Hondius. The lack of immediate medical care on a ship at sea had unfortunate results, as three of them died as a result. However, even if they had immediate care, they might have died anyway, because the virus is that dangerous.

There is no need to panic over Hantavirus. If you keep away from rats, or places where rats live and multiply, and you avoid contact with those who are symptomatic, you will not get Hantavirus. It will not spread like COVID-19 in a pandemic. It will spread around the world given people who travel may bring it, or ships may bring infected rats.

The United States has one of the most advanced—if not the most advanced—biological research infrastructures in the world. The CDC has always been the world leader in advising how to deal with new, or old-world, health concerns. But the CDC has been silent on the Hantavirus outbreak.

As other countries have dealt with the outbreak, and made statements about the implications of it, the United States has done, and said, nothing. President Trump remarked, “We seem to have things under good control,” to reporters on Friday. Health experts see it differently, as the Associated Press reported:

“The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen that before.”

The CDC should at least assure Americans that Hantavirus is not going to be like COVID-19, and to try to avoid panic. However, the CDC’s clout among many Americans has been greatly diminished since the days of COVID. At the start of the COVID pandemic, at first our health officials said masks were not necessary, then they said masks were mandatory. Then they shut down the entire country, then they refused to open it back up. COVID-19 became a political nightmare, as well as a health nightmare.

President Trump (first term) didn’t help, and in fact, he made the problem much worse. Besides hosting a super-spreader event at the White House, after learning he himself was infected, his daily press events became a clown show. The muted response to Hantavirus could be a reaction to memories of the awful coronavirus days. It could also be that the CDC, and its masters, under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are frozen in place, scared to say anything, lest they offend their boss, who, as far as I know, has not offered any opinion on Hantavirus.

The media is reporting on our silence as confirmation that RFKJr’s health agencies are simply not equipped to deal with world threatening health problems. This is not true at all. The CDC is very well equipped, as are many agencies, research labs, and university-based researchers, not to mention drug companies. If there needs to be some kind of vaccine to protect the public from Hantavirus, or if it begins to mutate into a strain having a higher spread rate, then it’s likely that will come from the U.S.

The question is whether RFKJr. will support it, especially if it’s an mRNA-designer vaccine. Beyond that, the question is whether President Trump and RFKJr. will agree on the messaging. It’s political, not clinical. Clinically, the U.S. is as well-prepared as its ever been to handle the spread of a deadly disease. The problem is going to be public acceptance.

For now, however, we should not worry about Hantavirus. Unless there is a mutation or strain that emerges from this virus, which has been known since the days of ancient China, it’s not something most people are likely to get. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning; a much better chance of being killed a by drunk driver, than contracting Hantavirus Cardiopulmonary Syndrome.

I only wish we could hear more of that message than the panic we’re hearing. I also wish we heard it from our government. The media hawks panic, which sells clicks and farms engagement. Our government is silent.

If you get a chance, check out my other Substack, Risky Tales. I just posted a very personal story there about my time in the hospital, and my relationship with God. That site is reader-supported by subscriptions, but this post is free to everyone.

One question pierced my calloused heart

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1. COVID-19 can spread by droplets, like a sneeze, if someone happens to be in the vicinity of the person sneezing, which is one reason masks, even cheap ones that can’t filter the virus itself, offer some degree of protection.