90-Second Read: Polymarket Spreads Sensationalist Garbage About Hantavirus Case in U.S.

Did you see a tweet from Polymarket that a s uspected Hantavirus case has been reported involving a high school student in New York? But there are a number of different reasons that health experts are less concerned about Hantavirus. For whatever reason, Polymarket spreads some of the most sensationalist garbage on social media, which is doing nothing for the credibility of prediction markets. Many people around the world are on edge after Hantavirus infected at least 11 people on a cruise ship, killing three.

The world is naturally on edge about the emergence of Hantavirus as something that can spread person-to-person, since we can all remember the Covid-19 pandemic that started in 2020. But there are questions about how so many people on the ship were able to get Hantavirus seemingly without direct contact. Perversely, one thing that humanity may benefit from in this case is the high lethality of Hantavirus. But there's more to the story and no reason for Americans to freak out about this particular case.

The people aboard the MV Hondius who have tested positive for Hantavirus all have the Andes virus, which is the only type of Hantavirus known to be transmissible between humans. The more common forms of Hantavirus all need to be contracted through direct contact with rodents. Covid-19 could be mild enough in some people that it was able to spread far and wide, making people feel ill but not necessarily killing them. Whatever you think about the likelihood of another pandemic (and, again, health experts say it's unlikely here) it's probably best to ignore whatever the Polymarket account on X is spreading.

It's rare, but there's no evidence that this is something genuinely new, as was the case with Covid-19. The most vulnerable people in society obviously paid a price for that, since the death toll globally from Covid is believed to be around 18 million, according to the Lancet. When you have a virus that kills quickly, it's difficult for the virus to spread.