90-Second Read: Hantavirus is not Covid-19, but ‘calm-mongering’ risks triggering post-Covid anxiety

Late Sunday, after the return of 18 passengers from the cruise ship MV Hondius to the United States, HHS announced that one person had tested "mildly PCR positive" for the Andes strain of Hantavirus. Even so, to some, it exemplified the communications problems around the Hantavirus outbreak. One point public health officials have repeatedly emphasized is that Hantavirus normally infects people who come into contact with urine or droppings from infected rats. 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.

Statements meant to quell anxiety instead risk undermining trust if they later turn out not to be true. Health communicators would be wise to start every news conference by acknowledging that this feels like Covid redux, he said. In a detailed study of a 2018 outbreak of Andes virus in Argentina, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, there were documented cases in which people were infected after only brief interactions. The thing about this one," President Donald Trump said in the same briefing, "it's much harder to catch.

Officials also point out that Covid was a brand-new virus, while this one is not. Mention a few ways it echoes Covid and agree that people are wise to be a bit skeptical about official 'nothing to worry about' messaging. This almost certainly won't become the global health emergency that Covid was. But the echoes of Covid will be hard for health officials to escape.

Then acknowledge the uncertainty and describe the decision-making process. The incubation period for the flu is one to four days; for Covid, it's two to 14 days. For example, "'We're thinking about worst case scenarios, checking and double-checking to make sure we still think this is a big deal only if you were on that ship or came into close contact with someone who was,'" Sandman wrote.