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?

  • neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works
    22·
    18 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.

    • a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.caOP
      4·
      18 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

      • velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        3·
        18 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.

        Edit: In addition, the fact that a flight attendant managed to catch it does speak towards it being more contagious than previously thought.

        • a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.caOP
          1·
          18 days ago

          Okay so this is concerning. I do think there is some wishful thinking in this thread. I wound bet on it reaching covid levels but it seems some concern is warranted

          • velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            2·
            18 days ago

            Yeah I last read that hantavirus has an RTO of .05 whereas Covid was like .3. I could be totally wrong on these numbers because I’m relying on memory, but hantavirus is much harder to catch than Covid.

    • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      18 days ago

      There are virus highly contagious with also high mortality. In this case death could happen after two months, enough time to spread if it had higher R0. What saves us here is that human to human spread is not that easy. If it were as contagious as covid we would have a problem.

      It’s a relationship between how quickly it kills you and how quickly it spread.

      For instance VIH had almost 100% death rate (before current treatments) but it’s pandemic because it takes years to kill you.