{"id":11988,"date":"2026-05-13T19:00:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T00:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11988"},"modified":"2026-05-15T12:24:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T17:24:36","slug":"hantavirus-ivermectin-and-the-dangers-of-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/05\/13\/hantavirus-ivermectin-and-the-dangers-of-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"MedPage Today: Hantavirus, Ivermectin, and the Dangers of the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/opinion\/second-opinions\/121246?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2026-05-13&amp;mh=07f73d99b2b546c079b0b5a2312d87b1&amp;zdee=gAAAAABm4uVVa0noffRIJqPd2rsKKgBm5ZURWXfuJljHxkA5SxaiDrFhpdNSLVuatrcndghIUJbdB8i3tZ00Sf5MYAfngC1RuyQP-n6FrYFzvROxn-4_blA%3D&amp;utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%20Evening%20-%20Randomized%202026-05-13&amp;utm_term=NL_Daily_DHE_dual-gmail-definition\">MedPage Today<\/a> Clear communication with patients can help drown out misinformation. Back in March 2020, I\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/colorado\/news\/coronavirus-colorado-social-distancing\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"did an interview, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">did an interview<\/a>\u00a0with a\u00a0<em>CBS<\/em>\u00a0affiliate 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&#8217;t make the cut: &#8220;Stay off the internet &#8212; it&#8217;s about to get really bad.&#8221; I&#8217;m about to, ironically, make the same point again 6 years later with a different virus scare. The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/infectiousdisease\/generalinfectiousdisease\/121093\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"hantavirus outbreak, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hantavirus outbreak<\/a>&nbsp;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&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/infectiousdisease\/generalinfectiousdisease\/121112\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"person to person, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">person to person<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/infectiousdisease\/generalinfectiousdisease\/121163\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"wont be responsible, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">won&#8217;t be responsible<\/a>&nbsp;for the next pandemic, since human-to-human transmission is quite rare and requires prolonged close contact and exposure. But we&#8217;ve been here before with the panic and misinformation. Is May 2026 just March 2020 on steroids?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MedPage Today Clear communication with patients can help drown out misinformation. Back in March 2020, I\u00a0did an interview\u00a0with a\u00a0CBS\u00a0affiliate 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&#8217;t make the cut: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misinformation-disinformation-and-conspiracy-theories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11988"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12036,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11988\/revisions\/12036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}