MedPage Today Clear communication with patients can help drown out misinformation. Back in March 2020, I did an interview with a CBS affiliate in Denver. While I was asked several questions about COVID-19 and pandemics in general, the interview was very short. To this day, I believe the most important piece of advice I shared didn’t make the cut: “Stay off the internet — it’s about to get really bad.” I’m about to, ironically, make the same point again 6 years later with a different virus scare. The hantavirus outbreak is straight out of a horror movie written in the post-COVID pandemic world. Passengers mysteriously sickened on a cruise ship, some of whom died after disembarking. The cruise continues on without them. Then more passengers get sick. Finally, we find out that the mysterious illness can, in fact, be transmitted from person to person.
Once the news broke about the cruise ship hantavirus illnesses, deaths, and the prospect of person-to-person transmission, the internet did what it does best: spread rumors, speculation, and falsehoods. People started to panic that the next pandemic was here. Almost immediately claims also started circulating about ivermectin as a cure for hantavirus. For the record, this hantavirus outbreak won’t be responsible for the next pandemic, since human-to-human transmission is quite rare and requires prolonged close contact and exposure. But we’ve been here before with the panic and misinformation. Is May 2026 just March 2020 on steroids?
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