How worried should we be about hantavirus right now?

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.

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.

I bought all the toilet paper that was in store. Just in case.

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.

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 even if that original person didn't leave their quarters the whole time they were ill.

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.

Not very. There are a lot more "this could turn into a pandemic" incidents that don't turn into pandemics than those that do.

Worried? No. Earmark it though. Every few years there’s a new potential bug it’s just part of being a species, this one looks gnarly but too soon to tell. That being said, wear masks courteously and wash your hands. If things get bad again we’ll all find out together

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.

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. Better not to fret over that what one can't control.

Not very, it spreads human to human but much less aggressively 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

Wait, theres a hentai virus?

Since there are comments saying that the hantavirus rarely spreads from human-to-human, it seems like the news hasn't spread fast enough...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/hondius-ship-hantavirus-andes-strain-9.7189281

Hantavirus is spread by rodents and, more rarely, people. To date, the Andes strain is the only type of hantavirus in which human-to-human transmission has been confirmed, usually through close contact, such as by sharing a bed or food, experts say.

Article title: WHO confirms Andes strain hantavirus on cruise ship passengers, with 3 transferring from ship for treatment

...

And just 13 minutes ago, this news came out: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hantavirus-outbreak-cruise-ship-9.7190707; Contract tracing is underway.

Buy the toilet paper now before the shelves are empty.

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.

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 shitting.

Edit: This strain is a little contagious. Still shouldn't be concerned.

This all sounds like the very beginning of a Planet of the Apes movie.

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 (her symptoms were apparently unrelated to the virus). 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.

My overall worry is that with globalization on the rise and international fast travel growing each year we will start seeing more and more of these epidemics. It's just a question of time. 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.

Just don't lock yourself up on a seafaring vessel full of gluttonous assholes.

Apparently spread by rodents. WHO has said transmissibility is low, not another COVID situation.

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.

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.

Edit: this one might, though it isn't clear yet and if it does, it seems to require close contact or at least isn't as explosive as covid.

When I ask it I get down voted to oblivion. When YOU ask it its fine?????

No, because you can't do anything about it anymore than you could do about COVID.