Hantavirus cases now suspected in 5 countries as authorities scramble to contain outbreak
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/07/world/hantavirus-ship-tenerife-outbreak-intl
Hantavirus cases now suspected in 5 countries as authorities scramble to contain outbreak
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/07/world/hantavirus-ship-tenerife-outbreak-intl
36 Comments
Here we go
Thank god the US withdrew from WHO -.-
Hopefully no one on St. Helena is infected. A small isolated island like that is a terrible place to get sick with a rare virus: they don’t have the health infrastructure to handle it and it would be extremely difficult to move that infrastructure there. Flying patients out is possible, but the logistics are tricky, not to mention the cost.
Hoping this is a big nothing burger.
The virus has a fatality rate of 30% to COVID’s ~~2.7%.~~ 0.9% case mortality rate. Something like that would kill itself off to be a pandemic.
The issue is it has a very high incubation period of 40 to 60 days to COVID’s 6 to 8.
That’s the big issue.
And those of you who’ve played Plague Inc know that’s a great combination (to win the game)
Make them stay on the ship
How deadly is it? Don’t super deadly viruses have a hard time reaching pandemic levels? Not trying to downplay, just hoping that it doesn’t spread like crazy. Scary stuff
Pandemic 2! Wasn’t ready for a sequel
Let it be the ultimate test for the US Secretary of Health with no medical degree.
Oh my the conspiracy zealots, and the religious extremist are going to eat this up.
Lol I did a project on hantavirus in a GIS class during my Masters and was like “this is a silly little (albeit very serious) infection that seems to only exist in a small area of the US. Weird seeing it blow up on the national stage like this.
All we need is another pandemic under orange baboon and KFC junior…
I’ve already got my toilet paper 😂
So R0 is below 1 for the Andes’ strain which means only very close contacts are at risk. However, this is – of course – not counting the virus’ ability to mutate into a more virulent form which may have happened already increasing spreadability.
My millennial ass is ready for another “Once in a Generation” disaster.
My body is ready to stay home again
Doing some research into Hantavirus was very interesting to say the least. It seems to have a short, but intense timespan for spreading upon showing symptoms, but paired with the long incubation time it can pose a significant risk in less developed countries with high population density. I dont think such short transmition timespan risk will cause it to spread fast enough to not be contained, but as mentrioned a big question mark are countries like India, Bangladesh or Africa.
Have they ruled out the possibility that this is a new variant of the Andes strain? A more infectious variant?
There are a lot of over zealous doomers here. This is not a huge deal. These outbreaks happen. It sucks but viruses this deadly are not pandemic material.
Incorrect and somewhat inflammatory headline. There are 5 people in 3 countries that were mostly moved there specifically for treatment after becoming ill aboard ship.
There are individuals who were on the ship in other countries being monitored and/or tested but so far none are showing symptoms.
Situation needs to be monitored but we are far from a widespread crisis at this point.
EDIT: Also, just to be clear, I’m mainly speaking about the Reddit post headline. The original one from CNN: “From US to Singapore, cruise passengers are being monitored for hantavirus” is mildly sensational but at least technically accurate.
My Facebook feed is about to be filled with unemployed epidemiologists again.
Earth really is tying to shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
SCRAMBLE, bro the WHO just put out a statement “there is no indication to date that there is something further unusual”. We’re currently talking about 5 cases in world of 8.3 billion people.
The only people scrambling are the media on this.
The cruise that keeps on giving.
Ffs , what a decade this has been and it’s still not over
It’s not the next pandemic,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.
“This is one where everyone should just take a breath and know that we are going to bring this to resolution,” he said. “With adequate respiratory protection, [they could] very well stop all transmission from this point forward.””
They were already containing it. Everyone was on a ship. They should have stayed on the ship or at least kept in an isolated building to provide food and medical care. It was really stupid to allow anyone out of quarantine, especially out on a plane. Just when I think society has done the dumbest thing possible, people keep proving me wrong and do something dumber
We’re 90 days out from Pete Hegseth confidently eat rat turds during a national broadcast to own the libs.
It has a high mortality rate + lengthy incubation period. Up to 8 weeks before symptoms appear and realize you’ve been infected/infected others.
It could be a recipe for disaster, but the silver lining is that it is not easily spread.
But this is still extremely scary.
Soon your job will magically be doable remotely even though your boss has said it isn t for years.
oh look!, another “once in a generation” event! Boy, I sure do love being a millennial…
Even better, I get to inspect passenger ships for a living!
Good thing the US has a strong, well funded pandemic response ream right?
CDC yall helping to stop the spread or we just going to do the covid thing all over again?
God I hate this timeline, people are making wild claims without actually having and credentials or knowing anything. People who are saying “it’s gonna be fine” and “we are all gonna die” are both wrong. We have no idea what is going to happen. Yes the Hantavirus doesn’t have a high infectivity rate, but also 80 people who were on the plane with the woman who had died are unaccounted for and we do not know what their status is. That is the main issue right now
RFK jr will I’m sure say that the hantavirus is perfectly safe and encourage people to go out and get on purpose.
🎶 weeeee’re doing a sequel 🐸
I’ll save you a click, all 5 confirmed cases where on the ship. That’s 5 people from a ship with 146 people onboard. One woman from the KLM airline crew is suspected but no confirmed to have contracted it and by the sounds of it she hasn’t progressed to the point where she would be infectious.
The WHO is saying too many definite things about this not being the start of a pandemic (including actually saying “not a pandemic”) for them to just be calming the public. If they where lying they would be speaking more generally to cover themselves.
Why would they release these people? They should’ve kept them contained from the beginning. This is the stupidest timeline