90-Second Read: How to Manage Your Health Anxiety About Hantavirus

A Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship is triggering COVID flashbacks. Scroll through any newsfeed right now, and you'll see news of a cruise ship with a cluster of fatal Hantavirus cases—and a collective freak-out unfolding in real time. It's too soon to know exactly how the outbreak will play out (though health experts insist that Hantavirus is not COVID, and the risk to the general public is low). Howard Markel, a medical historian and author of books including When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed, has spent his career studying how societies respond to health threats. In early 2020, plenty of people—including health officials—assumed the virus would burn itself out in a few months.

People may instinctively reach for a mask," he says, "tense up when someone coughs, or keep more distance than they used to." Something about Hantavirus touches a nerve. Karen Cassiday, a clinical psychologist and author of Freedom from Health Anxiety, says the word itself does some of the damage. The more vivid stories about Hantavirus you consume, the more common and imminent the threat feels, regardless of what the actual numbers say. He used to tell anyone who asked that the final act of any pandemic is what he calls "global amnesia"—the moment when people dust themselves off, go on their merry way, and largely forget all about it. And then Hantavirus, whether it's on a boat or not, because it is so sudden if you do contract it—that's very.

Read More : The Difference Between Stress and Anxiety Six years on, Markel sees a population that hasn't forgotten, that's still washing its hands more, still masking in some settings, and still recoiling at headlines about viruses (then feverishly clicking them). And this is happening on the backdrop of intense political polarization and geopolitical instability—people are really inundated with bad news about these escalating threats." There's a longer arc to this anxiety, too. When people hear "Hantavirus," she says, their memory pulls up haunting associations of catastrophic illness and death. Hantavirus typically spreads through contact with rats and mice—or, more precisely, with their droppings, urine, and saliva. We sort of believe in the miracle of modern medicine to save us." That belief has made modern Americans healthier than any generation.

Navarro points out that Hantavirus normally generates almost no news coverage at all. If it's not the Hantavirus, it's something else," he says. Garfin's research has found that what predicts poor mental health during a crisis isn't simply being aware of it: it's repeated, high-volume media exposure over time. So how do you know when normal vigilance has tipped into something unhealthy? The healthiest people aren't those who eliminate uncertainty," he says.