90-Second Read: The world’s reaction to Hantavirus is tinged by echoes of COVID

And in recent days, another one has made itself known in the wake of a rare Hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship: the fear, despite official reassurances, that it might be happening again. In fact, there have been outbreaks of the current strain of Hantavirus in some South American countries through the decades, like one in 1997 in Chile. But in a post-COVID-19 world, it didn't take long before questions and concerns surfaced about disease spread in the days immediately following the first reports that three people had died from Hantavirus on the ship. They're the ones we carry inside us, grief over lost loved ones, chronic health conditions, the sense of lives interrupted.

A total of nine confirmed and two suspected cases have been identified, including the fatalities. Despite that, when ship passengers were taken to the Spanish island of Tenerife to disembark, residents like Samantha Aguero were concerned. One of the problems with COVID is it undermined that confidence in science for people who don't understand how science works. But the flourishing of fear, whether on a personal or societal level, can also be an indicator that something else is missing.

Health experts have repeatedly emphasized that even though the virus can cause serious illness in those infected, the risk of spread in the general public is low. But government officials and journalists were dealing with issues of public mistrust well before the pandemic. A lot of people in crisis, when they fear things, don't care what the answer is, as long as there's a definitive answer. As trust in institutions has weakened, people have lost a key way to navigate uncertainty together.

And so when those facts showed that they weren't 100% reliable and assured, it started undermining trust in the science. They're what allow millions of people to coordinate under uncertainty without knowing each other personally. The mistrust of science got ammunition not because scientists were making mistakes in their processes but because non-scientists didn't have the same understanding, she said.