[QuickTidal]

Also don't anyone go back and read the first like 9 pages or so of this thread from Jan 2020 to March...so many of us were basically like "this won't be that bad"...and the inexorable shutting down of things and numbers spiking happened over the course of like a week in March.

Again Hantavirus is not Covid...it's airborne between mice but not humans...however, I'm fascinated by the doctor getting it on the cruise ship, as it would suggest an airborne between humans strain of the Andes strain (which has been confirmed this is) a mutation, if you will.

And it's got a 40% death rate, which is a high amount for it to become a pandemic...but a mutation so it's less deadly and more livable while being transmissible would still be horribly bad.

So I'm not panicking yet....but this all seems so eerily familiar.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 06 May 2026 - 05:18 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Someone in France apparently got it just from being near an infected person on a flight.

Rat Virus Crisis Spreads to New Country - The Daily Beast

Not clear how long they were near them, or if anything unusual happened. I'd guess they were probably sitting next to them?

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 May 2026 - 06:25 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Actually it doesn't specify that they got it on the flight. They were just on the same flight as someone else who was infected. But apparently had no other connection to them or to the cruise ship.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 06 May 2026 - 06:28 PM

[Macros]

And you just know, absolutely know if this does kick off it will be fucking impossible to manage thanks to all the fuckwits from round 1

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 06 May 2026 - 08:04 PM, said:

And you just know, absolutely know if this does kick off it will be fucking impossible to manage thanks to all the fuckwits from round 1

With RFK in charge in the states and them having disconnected from the WHO? Yeah it would be a shitshow.

Also, guess which country disconnected from the WHO right after the USA/Trump did...guess...

Argentina, where all this started.

Also, the dutch couple who apparently brought it onto the ship and spread it were bird watching on their trip around South America and visited A LANDFILL to birdwatch near....so you know...no better place to find bubonic plague infected RATS.

anyways, even if things don't kick off we order a few packs of N95's from amazon last night to store in case things kick off and they start gouging again, and if they don't, we have a good supply of masks for when we are sick. So not a bad investment regardless.

As to actual information, it's kind of scattershot right now, but I think everyone is waiting to learn if the Andes Strain has mutated to airborne 2...which would make this more dangerous than it would be otherwise, or if this is just an outbreak that will eventually fizzle. I fervently hope the latter.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 07 May 2026 - 11:26 AM

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Well, fuck. I'm supposed to leave for 4 European countries starting Saturday!

[Abyss]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 07 May 2026 - 04:38 PM, said:

Well, fuck. I'm supposed to leave for 4 European countries starting Saturday!

as long as none of them have any mice you should be fine.

[amphibian]

QuickTidal, on 06 May 2026 - 04:48 PM, said:

Also don't anyone go back and read the first like 9 pages or so of this thread from Jan 2020 to March...so many of us were basically like "this won't be that bad"...and the inexorable shutting down of things and numbers spiking happened over the course of like a week in March.

I scanned back to see what I was saying and had that sigh of relief that I was taking it seriously back then.

I am lucky enough to have stashed a fair amount of masks already/have family and friends who are smart and diligent about this stuff and unlucky enough to live in a country where the shitheads running the country got even worse than the last go round of this.

The removal of the American cruise ship sanitation inspection program last year was a genuinely bad idea and we're seeing that today.

[QuickTidal]

It sounds like the Swiss flight attendant who they were concerned had a case from very brief interaction with the one lady tested negative and has some other virus. So that's good news, and puts us back closer to "probably won't go wide as a pandemic" territory...but the next few days will tel for sure.

Two of the people are from the ship in Ontario and hope supposedly quarantining....so as long as they aren't anti-masker/anti-govt remnants we should be good here.

[Cause]

Should I... Should I become a prepper?

I don't think prepping is stupid but when I see some people who live the prepping life I cant help but think its morphed into a hoarding or shopping addiction rather than actual emergency preparedness. I probably have enough food and water in my apartment to survive a week never ind 72 hours at any given time just from regular groceries. Realistically the average person against an airborne virus is not prepped to avoid all risk N95 masks or not. For viruses they require proper training, seal checks and no facial hair to be effective. Covid masks were more about not spitting your germs on other people and less about not breathing in there germ. Better than nothing but not 100%.

Realistically though I have never faced a serious situation, never been without power or water for more than 24 hours in my life. Guess its different if your in a hurricane, earthquake etc zone,

[Abyss]

 Cause, on 08 May 2026 - 03:12 PM, said:

Should I... Should I become a prepper?

I don't think prepping is stupid but when I see some people who live the prepping life I cant help but think its morphed into a hoarding or shopping addiction rather than actual emergency preparedness. I probably have enough food and water in my apartment to survive a week never ind 72 hours at any given time just from regular groceries. Realistically the average person against an airborne virus is not prepped to avoid all risk N95 masks or not. For viruses they require proper training, seal checks and no facial hair to be effective. Covid masks were more about not spitting your germs on other people and less about not breathing in there germ. Better than nothing but not 100%.

Realistically though I have never faced a serious situation, never been without power or water for more than 24 hours in my life. Guess its different if your in a hurricane, earthquake etc zone,

There are degrees. A box of masks, backups of meds, spare cash, decent first aid kit, some device battery packs, enough stored food/water to get you through a few days without power/water... to me that just makes basic sense.


Heavily fortified wilderness shelters and piles of guns, not so much.

[Abyss]

 Abyss, on 08 May 2026 - 04:54 PM, said:

 Cause, on 08 May 2026 - 03:12 PM, said:

Should I... Should I become a prepper?

I don't think prepping is stupid but when I see some people who live the prepping life I cant help but think its morphed into a hoarding or shopping addiction rather than actual emergency preparedness. I probably have enough food and water in my apartment to survive a week never ind 72 hours at any given time just from regular groceries. Realistically the average person against an airborne virus is not prepped to avoid all risk N95 masks or not. For viruses they require proper training, seal checks and no facial hair to be effective. Covid masks were more about not spitting your germs on other people and less about not breathing in there germ. Better than nothing but not 100%.

Realistically though I have never faced a serious situation, never been without power or water for more than 24 hours in my life. Guess its different if your in a hurricane, earthquake etc zone,

There are degrees. A box of masks, backups of meds, spare cash, decent first aid kit, some device battery packs, enough stored food/water to get you through a few days without power/water... to me that just makes basic sense.


Heavily fortified wilderness shelters and piles of guns, not so much.

...tho i acknowledge heavily fortified wilderness shelters and piles of guns sound like way more fun....

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

According to a paper in The New England Journal of Medicine, in 2018, a hantavirus outbreak with this strain [...] started after one infected person attended a birthday party with about 100 guests. [...] he left after about an hour and a half. Five people who were in the room — but not necessarily all even sitting right next to him — later sickened. [...]

Yet in recent days, the World Health Organization has reassured the public that hantavirus can be transmitted only through "close and prolonged contact" and that, as a result, it is unlikely to spread widely among the population at large [...]

I reached out to Gustavo Palacios, the senior author of the study about the Epuyén outbreak. He seemed as baffled by these pronouncements as I was. He told me that the paper he and his fellow researchers wrote used the phrase prolonged or close contact but he explained that, as they had written in their article, they didn't mean solely physical or bodily contact. [...] Looking at the same study, an airborne transmission expert, Linsey Marr, told CBC/Radio Canada that "it's strongly suggestive that airborne transmission is happening."

Dr. Palacios also said that he and his co-authors had calculated the median reproduction number of the Andes virus to be 2.1 — meaning that one sick person infected about two other people. That's more than enough for sustained human transmission. That reproduction number is not much lower than the initial strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 [...]

[...] Encouragingly, over the weekend, the W.H.O. published new technical documents to clarify its definition of the type of contact that could cause the spread of hantavirus. It now includes "close proximity exposure" as well as "exposure in enclosed or shared spaces." [...] But these guideline changes were done too quietly.

We Should Be Taking Hantavirus More Seriously - The New York Times

At least in its public statements, the W.H.O. has seemed more concerned with the health of the world economy. Or at least far too quick to jump to unjustified conclusions... just as they were during the early stages of the covid pandemic. It seems like they haven't learned. Or it's more lucrative for them to act as though they haven't.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 12 May 2026 - 12:41 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Trump's Hantavirus Official Is a Penis Implant Specialist
[... with] very little actual experience in public health.

He rebuked coronavirus mandates and spread conspiracy theories about treatment plans that sowed doubt and division over the government's public health response at the time. He has claimed that the pandemic was a part of a wider government plot to control people, and he skirted questions from the U.S. Senate as to whether or not he would recommend the Covid vaccine to his patients.

[... He] also hosted a YouTube series titled "Erection Connection," a professional show for other urologists discussing erectile dysfunction.

More than 40 people in the U.S. are currently being monitored in connection to a hantavirus outbreak

https://newrepublic....lant-specialist

... and here's what an actual expert has to say:

Quote

As an expert in what we call "exposure science," I have spent a career conducting forensic investigations to understand how diseases spread and what we should do about it. As a member of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, I [...] was an early proponent of the theory that COVID spreads through the air. There was evidence early on of airborne transmission, which my colleagues and I tried to draw attention to. We modeled the early-2020 outbreak of the disease on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and found that 90 percent of the spread was through aerosols, not contaminated surfaces, but the CDC didn't update its guidance until late 2020. I am alarmed to see the same pattern playing out now.

[...] Although the NEJM evidence is clear, officials have kept repeating "prolonged, close contact," so I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything. Last week I spoke with a physician who was on the MV Hondius as a passenger but who jumped in to help treat infected passengers after the ship's official doctor got sick and was evacuated.

He told me that the original treating doctor and staff were definitely in close contact with the first patient. But the others who got sick? They had merely shared space in the dining room and the lecture hall, and had not had close contact. We're now at 10 confirmed cases from the ship, which aligns with the prior outbreak dynamics: one person infecting many, no close contact required.

The Close, Prolonged Contact Myth - The Atlantic