90-Second Read: Hantavirus Outbreak Shows We Haven’t Learned the Lesson of Sars-1 or COVID-19

On May 8th, the World Health Organization (WHO) came out with recommendations for health-care workers dealing with patients with known or suspected Andes Hantavirus. It increases the chance that an outbreak, that could otherwise be managed adequately at an early stage, spreads further with very serious consequences for those infected. Maybe this outbreak won't be the one that initiates a pandemic.

May 24, 2026 by Healthy Debate Leave a Comment By Joe Vipond, Dick Zoutman, Kashif Pirzada Not a global pandemic but the minimizing of airborne precautions for an event with human-to-human transmission of a deadly respiratory virus possibly spread by airborne transmission. In 2003, SARS-1 ripped through several countries' health-care systems, sickening and killing predominantly health-care workers, patients and their families. FACT: COVID is not airborne is a tweet that still famously exists on the WHO's X page.

Twenty-five million (at least) deaths later, the WHO (and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, the Public Health Agency of Canada and all other public health agencies) belatedly acknowledged airborne transmission. Some are even recommending airborne precautions when managing COVID (but curiously, not all). For a disease that has up to a 40-50 per cent mortality risk.