The head of the World Health Organization has warned countries to prepare for more hantavirus cases after the outbreak onboard the MV Hondius, and thanked Spain for the “compassion and solidarity” it had shown by taking in the stricken cruise ship and evacuating its passengers and crew.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries to follow the WHO’s advice and recommendations, which include a 42-day quarantine and constant monitoring of high-risk contacts.
“At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak, but of course the situation could change and, given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” he told a press conference in Madrid on Tuesday.
Whoa, whoa, slow down. I ain’t ready for COVID 2 yet!
Oh this is colossally worse. Is that a word? It is now. This has basically a few days where you’re ‘fine’ w/ cold symptoms, and next thing you know you’re dead.
So when is the next Animal Crossing coming out? That’s how we’ll know.
Neither Animal Crossing nor Doom have upcoming entries announced. We’re safe for the time being!
Death stranding 2 just dropped what do you mean? Those come after the chaos, the prophets are screaming.
Judging by how we did with the last pandemic … I guess we should enjoy whatever we’ve got now because all of it is going to get screwed up by the dumbest people on the planet
Dunno about you, I don’t really own anything of value. I’m barely scrapping by as it is now. So yeah, it’s not hard to feel the desire to let the world burn when your personal life is turning into a relentless treadmill.
Hey if you get infected become a hero and apply at ICE in person.
Who, who, who!
At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak
I’d fucking hope so…
If we see signs of a larger outbteak, it’s already too late. This has 40% mortality rate under the best conditions when dealing with isolated cases, and an R factor over two (1 is where its infectious enough to cause wifescale problems)
This is like Y2k all over again. We need to take it seriously and if we do a bunch of idiots will think that means we didn’t need to.
But if we let the idiots win and don’t take it seriously, then we’re all fucked
I’ll never understand why the idiots get so fucking triggered that someone else is worried about something and trying to protect them.
If people don’t think this is a big deal and there’s no reason for anyone to worry, then they can just ignore the entire thing on a personal level.
Instead they feel insulted if anyone disagrees with them, because that’s what idiots do.
They don’t care about if they’re right, they just get mad if anyone disagrees with them about anything.
Hantavirus is not nearly as contagious as something like COVID and requires close, prolonged contact and sharing of respiratory secretions or saliva to spread. Its important to be wary of hantavirus, but the best thing you can do instead of panicking is to educate yourself on it.
Ever swept your garage? You were putting yourself at risk for hantavirus. A lot of people don’t know this. Read up on the way it spreads and where it originates (usually rodent droppings – it’s no surprise this happened on a cruise ship as they are pretty well known vectors of disease), and how to properly deal with things like that.
I understand why you feel worried and that is valid, but channel that energy into educating yourself and those in your circles so you’re prepared.
FYI, the suspected origin is South America, not on board the ship. Cruise ships do seem to be perfect environments for further spreading disease, though.
On Thursday, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said the Dutch couple, who were the first two cases, had travelled through Argentina, Chile and Uruguay on a bird-watching trip “which included visits to sites where the species of rat known to carry the virus was present”.
It’s extremely questionable if Andes strain really transmits person-person.
Cruise ships are disgusting and infamous for food contamination. The industry is really pushing the “it was one guy” theory to distract from shit in the food.
This makes sense! Those dang bird watchers shakes fist
Yeah: bird watching at a dump. What the hell were they looking for, seagulls?
Wait actually at a dump??
Argentine officials have said the couple took a bird-watching tour that included a stop at a garbage dump where they may have been exposed to rodents carrying the infection.
Waow
Majestic seagulls.
seagulls?
You don’t like seagulls?
Shouldn’t a mask be extremely effective against this virus? So it should be easy to protect yourself I would think.
It will probably also be a form of natural selection for those that refuse to wear one.
Any mask is better than no mask…
But look at the type the WHO was wearing (full on body suits), or the plastic “iron lung” tents the Spanish are using when someone pops positive.
I really don’t know if COVID era masks would do anything or not.
It’ll be like COVID at best, where wearing a mask doesn’t prevent you from being infected, but a mask drastically reduces who you infect.
So, masks would only work if everyone is wearing them. One asymptomatic idiot that refuses to even get tested would infect everyone they walk past.
Well yeah I would expect the WHO doctors to take every precaution they can especially because they are the ones studying it. But from my understanding this virus spreads through saliva and small liquid particles that are expelled from talking, coughing, or sneezing. I would think that a mask would help a ton in preventing these liquid particles from entering your system. You would also want to wash your hands frequently too especially before eating.
But from my understanding this virus spreads through saliva and small liquid particles that are expelled from talking, coughing, or sneezing.
…
You mean like COVID?
Or literally every respiratory infection?
If a group is all wearing masks, no one is exhaling breath with those droplets, and everyone is safe.
If only infected people wear a mask, everyone is safe.
If a single infected person doesn’t wear a mask, they can infect people still wearing masks.
Rather than try to explain the details, think of your eyeballs, if an infected person breath lands on your eyeballs, how does a mask protect you?
If the viral load they’re shedding lands on your face, hands, literally anything besides the inside of your nose or mouth, what do you think happens to it?
Masks work by preventing it from coming out of an infected person’s face holes, it doesn’t magically form a bubble around a healthy person making them immune…
Rather than try to explain the details, think of your eyeballs, if an infected person breath lands on your eyeballs, how does a mask protect you?
I’m not going to counter this stupid self-research argument from 2020, but respiratory viruses only infect cell types with the correct receptors, found in the airway.
Medical professionals, who know what they are doing and are educated, wear masks. It’s not cosplay.
Got it so I will need goggles, a mask, and frequently washing my hands/exposed skin. While this might not be perfect its better than going without.
I get what you are saying that infected people are the ones that need to wear masks to prevent this from spreading but I do not have control over what other people are doing and can only control what actions I make, and I would like to take precautions if this starts getting worse.
Remember how they had that meeting a while ago? Just like with covid? Yeah, stock up long term food just in case
Time to hoard toilet paper and ivermectin I guess
On the plus side, probably no better time to buy cruise tickets!
Most of the diarrhea has been cleaned up!
We just sent a boatload of sample cases all over the world so countries can practice for the outbreak…
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People contract it by breathing in aerosolized fresh rodent feces and urine. It’s rare to begin with. This is very different from Covid in the way it spreads. I agree it’s good to be prepared with ways to limit its mortality rate in affected individuals, but these news articles are whipping up hysteria in a population that just survived a world pandemic of something that was highly communicable. Hantavirus is not.
Isn’t the current strain transmissible from person to person?
The Andes strain, which is what is being discussed, is indeed spreadable person to person.
The Andes strain, which is what is being discussed, is indeed spreadable person to person.
Actually is not. . One shit MD-based study concluded this, but all others say no.
The balance of the evidence does not support the claim of human-to-human transmission of ANDV. Well-designed cohort and case-control studies that control for co-exposure to rodents are needed to inform public health recommendations.
Then there’s Reddit-Lemmy-Facebook University.
You’re welcome to take that to Chubby Emu, who cites his sources as well about how it spreads. I’ll take his well researched opinion over randos.
Most sources say no. From what I understand, there is a variant in South America that is believed to have been previously passed human to human, but that may be influencing media reports to say it can be rather than differentiating that in most of the world that hasn’t happened.
Edit: I see now that the article talks about the cruise ship having gone to South America. This still wouldn’t necessarily mean that the virus is as transferrable as COVID was, but with the long incubation time, I understand the abundance of caution.
