How worried should we be about hantavirus right now?

Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

Title. Apparently there is a cruise ship quarantined right now because of this. And a guy at work was telling me some of the staff escaped? Not sure what exactly is going on but is it cause for concern?

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einkorn@feddit.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
No need to panic. The virus is rarely transmitted from human to human or via air.

Cruise ships are a hot bed for diseases though: Many people in a confined space going to places with diseases that their body has no resistance against. So your best protection is simply not going near the ship.

On the topic of staff escaping: Given that the ship hasn’t been able to dock so far I highly doubt that’s true.

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- vrek@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I agree but to give some context to the staff escaping, this probably was started because one of the people airvaced to a hospital was a staff member. They didn’t “escape” they got sick and needed emergency medical treatment. I can believe someone heard a staff member was no longer on board and warped that into staff “escaping”.
  
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  - FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    this source claims
    
    Authorities in Switzerland also said a former passenger who tested positive was being treated at a Zurich hospital. The passenger had left the ship at St Helena and it was unclear how he had travelled to Switzerland or which countries he might have passed through. Swiss authorities insisted there was “no risk” to the public
    
    It also claims
    
    But a limited spread among close contacts has been observed in some previous outbreaks with the Andes strain, which has spread in South America, including Argentina, where the cruise trip started in March.
    
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- starlinguk@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  One of the women who got infected (she knew, her husband had already died and she was very ill) got onto a plane to Johannesburg and died in Johannesburg.
  
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  - einkorn@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Did she get on a commercial plane by herself or was this a planned airlift to a hospital, though?
    
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sidelove@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
To add on to the points here, hantavirus is lethal in a way that doesn’t translate to widespread pandemics easily. Coronavirus is unique in that while it was 5:1 more lethal than similarly transmissible airborn viruses, that was the “Goldilocks zone” for a virus with its lethality and transmissibility to do maximum damage. Lots of excess death, but the average person generally only had a slightly rough go of it. Hantavirus has >30% lethality in many forms, and is extremely likely to burn itself out before any sort of epidemic status.

So ultimately, very unfortunate for those that contract it, but its characteristics put it way below pretty much every other airborn illness in terms of what keeps me up at night.

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- starlinguk@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Covid plays the long game, though. People who only had a rough time of it can die as a result of it years later.
  
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  - neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    That’s true of all flu strains.
    
    COVID is just the one we’ve studied the most, because of the pandemic and the number of cases.
    
    There’s a lot of studies showing that “regular” flu strains can cause lasting damage to cardiovascular systems years/decades down the road.
    
    COVID is just the most prominent flu strain, and the one we have collected the most data on. But all flues are really, really bad for you long term if you get them.
    
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  - fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Sure, but that’s the point, it’s not lethal enough to kill you faster than you can spread it, yet lethal enough that you can’t discount the aftereffects.
    
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- ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Anyway, if they were smart, they would’ve started in Madagascar. I’m not worried, no way this is the one.
  
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- a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  From what I understand, you fan still have a really deadly virus thats super contagious, as long as there is a window of time where a host can spread the virus asymptomatically (then, once its spread, they started getting hit hard with the symptoms). I’m guessing hantavirus doesn’t have this characteristic?
  
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- neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Exactly this.
  
  It’s macabre, but its high mortality rate and small window of transmissibility before symptoms appear, pretty much keeps this from becoming a pandemic. It’s too effective at killing the host.
  
  Something like COVID survives because it has a mortality rate a hundredth of this, but has a huge window of transmissibility before symptoms start appearing, or the symptoms are very mild.
  
  The larger that window, the scarier a virus gets.
  
  Hentavirus is terrifying if you do contract it, because you’ve got roughly a 1 in 3 chance of dying, but that mortality rate is also the reason why it’s not going to spread to every corner of the world.
  
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ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I bought all the toilet paper that was in store. Just in case.

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- nandeEbisu@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Good call, more global unrest could result in another warehouse being burned down.
  
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Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
There are several hundred cases of Hantavirus in the USA and various parts of South America every year. Doesn’t make the news, doesn’t turn into a pandemic.

You’ll be fine unless you’ve been in close proximity to someone who’s been infected.

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- deifyed@lemmy.wtf ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I thought it couldn’t transfer between humans? Only from rodent saliva/pee/poop
  
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  - dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Just like any something-virus. It isn’t just one strain, it is usually a family of several diverse virus with slightly different features. Hanta virus has several varieties, this one is transmisible among humans.
    
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- CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  How many cases are Andes strain on a cruise ship?
  
  Not saying we should be freaking out, but alert seems fine.
  
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  - Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I’ve got no idea, and sure being alert is a sensible idea. If it looks like its starting to spread in the countries where the ship stopped then I’ll start taking whatever precautions are recommended
    
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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It’s only newsworthy and scary for the people on that cruise ship since it can be passed pretty easily in such tight, close quarters.

Having worked on a cruiseship, it is insane how fast a single person with a cold becomes 80% of the crew having a cold.

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- ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I’ve heard horror stories of working on cruise ships. How was it?
  
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  - Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    It was not any more horrible than a normal janitorial/housekeeping job except for the hours. 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. No weekends. No days off for the whole 5 months you’re on the ship. But you make bank and have no where or no reason to spend anything since you get fed and a place to sleep.
    
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- a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Do things spread so fast on a cruise ship die to the ventilation?
  
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  - Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    It’s because you’re all confined to a relatively small area. You see the same kind of contagion spreadage at conventions, too, but if you’re really sick you can leave and quaratine yourself. You can’t so easily get off a boat.
    
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  - SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    it’s because people are all eating the same food contaminated with rodent shit.
    
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Furbag@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Stressing out about it right now won’t do you or anyone else any good. Just keep an ear to the ground for news updates. If they still have hantavirus under control and quarantined on the ship, it’s a good sign that it will stay contained there.

I don’t think we have another global pandemic on our hands, but you should take precautions now just in case - especially if it makes you feel less anxious about it. Wearing a mask in public costs you very little in terms of effort and is far more socially acceptable post-Covid.

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- JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  keep an ear to the ground
  
  Not advisable because hantavirus comes from mice whose habitat is on the ground.
  
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- ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  About 30 people from 12 different countries left the ship after the first infected person died and went home.
  
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- FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I’ve already been stocking up on canned stew in case the Americans invade
  
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InvalidName2@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It’s fucked up but you’re seeing so much about it online and hearing so much about it because sensationalized fear translates to money and attention for those seeking such things.

That’s not to say that this virus isn’t dangerous and devastating to those affected, infected, and exposed to it. We definitely shouldn’t be down playing that. It’s just that this virus has no chance of causing a major disruption of our lives on a wide-spread global scale.

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- a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  It’s fucked up but you’re seeing so much about it online and hearing so much about it because sensationalized fear translates to money and attention for those seeking such things.
  
  This is exactly the sort of reasoning I used to downplay COVID though
  
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  - Holytimes@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Brutal honestly here,
    
    So because of your own willfully ignorance and lacking education on the topic. You are now over correcting in the other direction via fear and panic because you fucked up the first time. Due to the same external forces that you allowed dictate your actions the first time. Aka bad faith journalism and misinformation.
    
    The actual solution to your problem is to go actually learn about the topic so you can make an informed opinion and action plan with our relying on random internet strangers to tell you how to think. And by learn, that doesn’t mean go watch some shitty 5 min video on YouTube or ask some random fucking idiot on reddit or Lemmy. Go actually educate yourself. Proper long form content from licensed doctors and nurses or books. Educating your self will help with the anxiety, fear, etc. And it prevents the fear mongering from bad faith news sources to dictate your thoughts and opinions.
    
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  - InvalidName2@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    That sounds like an unfortunate lack of perspective and information on your part, to me. While that may sound rude, it’s actually not a bad thing, so long as it’s not due to being willfully ignorant.
    
    Kind of taking the “Explain like I’m five” approach to comparing hantavirus and COVID: It’s like being afraid of catching rabies from sparrows because you’re aware that bats can carry rabies. After all, they’re both flying creatures that can live in close proximity to people.
    
    At the end of the day, COVID-19 was a novel pathogen, not well-understood in the early days, and something of a perfect storm of conditions and characteristics that allowed it to blow up in to a global pandemic. This strain of hantavirus is the sparrow to the covid bat. Superficial similarities (they’re both viral diseases), but very different different things in all the ways that count.
    
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Gonzako@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Wait, theres a hentai virus?

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Grimy@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Buy the toilet paper now before the shelves are empty.

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- Successful_Try543@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  In France, it was red wine and condoms. But you do you.
  
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  - Grimy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I don’t need condoms for the same reason I need twice as much toilet paper. I could still go for the wine but it makes the whole experience kind of sad.
    
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TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Three patients suspected of having the hantavirus were evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship and were on their way to the Netherlands for medical care, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The three are German, Dutch and British nationals, including a British crew member, according to the WHO.

tranquilo, Chuy.

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starlinguk@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I sat next to an army medic of the German-French brigade at a concert yesterday. When I scooted closer to her because other people wanted to sit down I said “Don’t worry, I don’t have the hanta virus” and she said “How do you know? You could catch it on the Schwäbische Alb, it’s not a tropical virus.”

So I’m not particularly worried, especially because journalists are notoriously bad at interpreting WHO communications.

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- luciferofastora@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  journalists are notoriously bad at interpreting WHO communications
  
  Or particularly good at making a sensational mountain that’ll get clicks out of a molehill. Gotta sell your stories, after all.
  
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- ComfortableRaspberry@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  A former colleague got it in the area of Heidenheim. They were sweeping out the attic of a very old, mouse infested house and didn’t wear any masks though they swept up a lot of dust.
  
  As long as you don’t act careless while in a more risky environment you’re usually fine when it comes to hanta virus.
  
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  - ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Is it the “mouse infested” part that made it risky?
    
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Windex007@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Human-to-human transmission is extremely rare.

You get it from mouse shit. It’s significantly more likely that the people who got it were all exposed to the same mouse shit than it is that they gave it to each other.

You should be way more worried about the mice on that ship coming off and shutting.

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- usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Starting this off with: I am not an epidemiologist and most of the epidemiologist I’m seeing online aren’t yet too concerned
  
  That being said, they have not found any rodents on the ship, though that does not mean they didn’t just them in their search. The version on the ship has been confirmed to be the Andes Virus (ANDV) which is human-to-human transmissible in a way that most hantavirus are not
  
  It’s hard to say exactly how the virus will behave outside of a cruise ship (which are known for spreading diseases more than other locations), but we can potentially look at a past outbreak in 2018 in a small town for an idea
  
  In this work, we described the isolation of the strain responsible for the largest ANDV PTP transmission outbreak, which occurred in the small town of Epuyén and began on November 2, 2018. This strain, ARG-Epuyén, exhibited a high capacity for PTP transmission, necessitating the implementation of quarantine measures to curtail further spread [8]. The median reproductive number (the mean number of secondary cases caused by an infected person) was 2.12 before control measures were implemented and subsequently dropped to below 1.0 by late January
  
  pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12201636/
  
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gokayburucdev@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’m more afraid of the World Health Organization than the Hantavirus. Whenever they want to confine people to their homes, they release a virus.Then the World Health Organization makes a statement.An excuse is immediately fabricated for the released virus.Men in white clothes appear, followed by masks.

While all this is happening, they are inevitably subjecting people to certain systems.The first pandemic brought with it structures like remote work, masks, wireless payment systems, and online grocery stores.

This time it’s universal citizen salaries, A global passport, an identity where all information is collected in a single source, the disappearance of cash, and digital payments are some of the structures of the future.I still don’t understand the point of killing people to convince them of this new global world order.

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- phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yeah you need to go outside and touch some grass man…
  
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  - gokayburucdev@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I’ll see you when you start eating those herbs soon. The previous virus started like this too, but idiots like you wouldn’t accept it.Even if you pulled out all the weeds now, it wouldn’t do any good.
    
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  - ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    And buy some weed. Or buy less weed.
    
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- melsaskca@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Upvoted for fictional originality.
  
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platypode@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Not very, it spreads human to human but it’s much harder to spread than flu or covid.

“We do believe that there may be some human-to-human transmission that’s happening among the really close contacts, the husband and wife, people who’ve shared cabins,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic management at the World Health Organization, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday.

…

However, Debbink says, if this is indeed human-to-human transmission, the virus does not seem to be highly transmissible because then “you would have a lot more cases on the cruise ship, just from people being around each other in pretty close proximity.”

Per NPR

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daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I have read a lot about it because I have stressed a lot about it, I’m also naturally very skeptical so I dig down a lot.

This particular variant is the Andes strain of the virus which have been show to transmit human.

It’s a virus that had existed for long time. And has already caused local epidemics. The most famous the Chilean Argentinian epidemic of 2019 where something like a dozen people died out of thirty infected.

Mortality is high (around 30% of infected, once you develop lung symptoms around 50%) but R0 number is low. Usually the studied R0 number has been below 1. This mean that each person rarely spread it to more than one other person. For comparison covid R0 was something between 2 and 4. This is the main reason to think it won’t spread a lot.

This virus has been around a lot, but it’s true that it has maybe never been in a situation like now with worries about quick international spread via airlines.

Currently most worries are about how easy is to actually spread human to human. There was a case of a flight attendant who was tested after a short contact with an infected but apparently has tested negative. So for now we must watch out if the people who were in flights with some of the infected have also been infected. If there are none or very few infected of those airplane passengers we could, most likely, breath safe, as the danger would be low. If we start to see infections after short contact then we should worry. As of this morning I start to believe that we are on the former scenario, as there has currently not been any positive test after a short contact.

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- a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  This is the most in depth response yet, thank you
  
  From my point of view is not if there will be a pandemic virus that would wipe out a high chunk of the population. I think that’s guaranteed if we don’t change our traveling habits. It’s just a matter of when.
  
  Yes I agree with you actually. The reasoning behind this conclusion is airtight, yet no one wants to go there because it’s such a disturbing thought.
  
  And even though the COVID lab leak theory is controversial, there have been well documented lab leaks of other biohazards. If we keep poking around with these things it increases the odds of this happening even further, whether that be by a malicious actor doing it intentionally or someone letting it slip by mistake
  
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- Bwaz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I hope you are correct, though I 'm not confident that doing any actual testing is a priority in the USA presently.
  
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Professorozone@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
This all sounds like the very beginning of a Planet of the Apes movie.

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- a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I’m on the apes side
  
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  - SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Get yer hands off me…
    
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ofthemasses@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Apparently spread by rodents. WHO has said transmissibility is low, not another COVID situation.

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- daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  This particular strain apparently is the Andes variant which is know to be able to spread among humans. But the R0 number studied on previous epidemics of that strain is indeed low.
  
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Buddahriffic@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It doesn’t spread person to person so it won’t have the explosive growth and spread to all corners of the globe like covid.

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- a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Apparently this strain does
  
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  - Holytimes@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Well then you have two options beyond the standard practices such as basic hygiene, food safety, etc.
    
    Panic, freak out and lock your self in a hole.
    
    Or trust that the people who’s actual job to handle this problem will do what they need to.
    
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SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Just don’t lock yourself up on a seafaring vessel full of gluttonous assholes.

Image

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neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
With a 35% mortality rate, the virus by definition can’t be too contagious, because it kills the host too quickly.

That’s not to say it’s not going to be an issue, just that it’s not going to be at the pandemic/endemic levels of something like COVID, which is a hundred times less deadly, so there’s more chances for it to be transmitted.

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- a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Deadly viruses can be very contagious as long as there is a period of time where the host can spread it asymptomatically before symptom onset. As far as I’m aware hantavirus doesn’t have that though? Sounds like shit just hits the fan right away
  
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  - velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    
    HPS is a severe and potentially deadly disease that affects the lungs. Symptoms of HPS usually start to show 1 to 8 weeks after contact with an infected rodent.
    
    Early symptoms can include:
    
    fatigue fever muscle aches, especially in the large muscle groups like the thighs, hips, back, and sometimes shoulders About half of all HPS patients also experience:
    
    headaches dizziness chills abdominal problems, like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain Four to 10 days after the initial phase of illness, the late symptoms of HPS appear. These symptoms include coughing and shortness of breath. Patients might experience tightness in the chest, as the lungs fill with fluid.
    
    HPS can be deadly. Thirty-eight percent of people who develop respiratory symptoms may die from the disease.
    
    Hantavirus can be spread once mild symptoms appear, which unfortunately are so mild that most people wouldn’t even think about it being hantavirus. And it can take up to 8 weeks for symptoms to start to appear.
    
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- daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  It doesn’t work like that. There are virus highly contagious with also high mortality.
  
  It’s a relationship between how quickly it kills you and how quickly it spread.
  
  For instance VIH had almost 100% death rate but it’s pandemic because it takes years to kill you.
  
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