Comment by aqme28
5 hours ago
Similar to the cruise-ship Hantavirus situation earlier this year. People see a disease they've never encountered and assume it's a novel pandemic. Really, it's just one of the rare cases where a westerner contracts a disease that's endemic to the global poor.
Most of people who are alive can relate to a very specific period in their lives, and it’s easy to imagine now what virus can do in terms of social life.
Are you discounting rural Americans as not being part of the global poor then? Or not real “westerners”? There have been roughly 30 cases a year in western states since the disease was first found here in the 90s
Infection by hantavirus is correlated with where you live, not socioeconomic status. It is endemic to parts of the high desert in the American Southwest and a background risk you accept by living there.
For example, Gene Hackman's wife, Betsy Arakawa, famously died from hantavirus. They lived in a wealthy gated community in Santa Fe.
30 in a population of 350mill is a ~1:10000000 chance of getting it. 900 or so cases in 3 decades. A cursory google search shows it's killed about 300 people since 1990, so roughly 10 a year, the equivalent of venomous snake-related deaths more or less, and that's because we have quick access to anti-venoms for most of the population otherwise the casualties would be far higher.
Treating that low number like a low number is not "discounting" rural US citizens. The US - all populations included - does not really live with the hantavirus in any real sense. It's incredibly rare. 10x as many people are struck by lightening annually in the US.
It’s a low number because it’s very preventable and people in those areas know to be careful around mouse poop because of the risk of hantavirus
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Hantavirus is worth worrying about, though. If you have a mouse infestation, don't vacuum up droppings. Put on a mask, spray them with disinfectant, get them nice and wet, wipe them up 10 minutes later while they're still wet, then clean the area again.
Oh, was the hantavirus a product of a Russian gain-of-function biolab?
Are you seriously accusing an anti-plague institute that works on containing outbreaks of building bio weapons? Maybe try taking the propaganda with a healthy dose of salt