90-Second Read: Expert: Hantavirus Not A Covid Rerun

The recent Hantavirus outbreak on an Argentine cruise ship that killed three people won't turn into a mass pandemic like Covid-19. The lethal Andes strain on Hantavirus, which caused the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, hasn't mutated the way Covid-19 strains did and doesn't spread fast the way Covid did. Is [the Hantavirus] more like Ebola and SARS 1, where it was a deadly, horrible virus, but not a mass event? Based on what we're seeing, [the Hantavirus] is just not nearly as contagious.

The one exception to that rule is this one specific strain of Hantavirus called the Andes Virus, which circulates in rodents in Argentina. It's really any type of Hantavirus infection could lead to a 40-percent death [rate]. So is the super-spreader in this case, not the Hantavirus, but the fears we have because of the understandable trauma from Covid? That said, do wear gloves and an N95 mask when you clean rodent droppings at your house.

Yes, this is much more similar to Ebola than something like Covid. Covid, we think if you pass somebody in the airport, you could get infected. Anytime you get a lot of people in a closed space that's cramped, you're going to facilitate the spread of anything. The thought is that Hantavirus, when you're sweeping up rodent droppings, you can aerosolize some of the virus in those droppings and inhale it.

Can that change when viruses mutate, the way Covid did? Argentina has been dealing with this strain since, you know, the mid-'90s, if not earlier. He [wrote in the Atlantic] that all the advice that the officials are giving us is that only close, prolonged contact is the way this thing can spread.