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?
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.
I hope you are correct, though I 'm not confident that doing any actual testing is a priority in the USA presently.
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 many well documented lab leaks of other biohazards, viral or otherwise. If we keep poking around with these things it increases the odds of another pandemic increase even further, whether that be by a malicious actor doing it intentionally or someone letting it slip by mistake
I bought all the toilet paper that was in store. Just in case.
Good call, more global unrest could result in another warehouse being burned down.
Apparently spread by rodents. WHO has said transmissibility is low, not another COVID situation.
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.
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.
keep an ear to the ground
Not advisable because hantavirus comes from mice whose habitat is on the ground.
About 30 people from 12 different countries left the ship after the first infected person died and went home.
I’ve already been stocking up on canned stew in case the Americans invade
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.
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
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.
Brutal honesty here: youre kind of being a dick and are taking this Lemmy thread too seriously
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 things in all the ways that count.
Im not saying that hantavirus is the next COVID. I just was saying that I wouldnt dismiss it solely because Im worried about the media hyping things up, because that can apply to anything.
Superficial similarities (they’re both viral diseases), but very different things in all the ways that count.
That’s good to know
Wait, theres a hentai virus?
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.
Covid plays the long game, though. People who only had a rough time of it can die as a result of it years later.
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.
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.
Does the flu cause heart attacks and strokes due to vein and arterial damage?
Covid is a systemic disease, flu is a respiratory disease.
Influenza is not limited to the lungs. Thousands got encephalitis from the 1918 pandemic.
Anyway, if they were smart, they would’ve started in Madagascar. I’m not worried, no way this is the one.
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.
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?
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.
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”.
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.
I thought I read there was also a british man who was a member of the staff, I will look and try to get a source to back that up.
British in board doctor
Updoot for calm approach, but it does appear that, at least in one case on the cruise ship herself, one passenger transmitted it to another.
NO claim it was airborne though. Could have been clothing, shared food, a zillion different vectors.
Yes, there has been human to human transmission, however as I wrote it rarely happens. Of course, close contact like in a cruise ship full of people is going to increase the risk.
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.
Did she get on a commercial plane by herself or was this a planned airlift to a hospital, though?
It was a commercial flight with 80 passengers. WHO is searching for them.
Also, another patient from the ship is in a hospital in Switzerland. I have no idea how they got there, but I think it’s safe to say that the ship has not been isolated to begin with.
And a German is being airlifted to Düsseldorf, a Dutch person to somewhere in the Netherlands and a Brit to Britain.
This entire thing would not have been a problem whatsoever if the ship had been quarantined and stayed quarantined. Something similar happened in 2018 and thanks to the measures taken only 30 people got infected.
Allegedly this one is confirmed to transmit humans to human (South Africa found it to be the case I believe?) and there’s cases in like Switzerland, it’s not like the disease spontaneously formed and then they quarantined they’ve been getting on and off the boats for weeks before they stopped
The virus is rarely transmitted from human to human or via air.
If this is the case, then why was quarantine necessary to stop the spread in previous outbreaks? Referring to this:
The strain demonstrated a high capacity for sustained transmission among the human population requiring the implementation of quarantine measures, rigorous contact tracing, isolation of close contacts, and active clinical monitoring to prevent further spread.
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.
I’ve heard horror stories of working on cruise ships. How was it?
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.
Do things spread so fast on a cruise ship die to the ventilation?
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.
it’s because people are all eating the same food contaminated with rodent shit.
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.
Still rare.
Not saying it isn’t. Just saying we’ve essentially hit the proverbial jackpot. Not a jackpot we like, but a jackpot nonetheless.
Like that one story where the winner gets stoned to death
One would think that all those animated explainers about the exponential curves would stick at least for a while.
This is mouse shit to human.
Enjoy the buffet! all U can eat!
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.
How many cases are Andes strain on a cruise ship?
Not saying we should be freaking out, but alert seems fine.
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
I thought it couldn’t transfer between humans? Only from rodent saliva/pee/poop
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.
Oh really. That’s… A bummer
Just don’t lock yourself up on a seafaring vessel full of gluttonous assholes.
This all sounds like the very beginning of a Planet of the Apes movie.
I’m on the apes side
Get yer hands off me…
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.
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.
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.
Is it the “mouse infested” part that made it risky?
Yes, mouse excrements were the culprit. Because they weren’t wearing masks or other protection they swirled particles up in the air and breathed them in. So us actually pretty easy to avoid :)
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
