Plague Ship's Potentially Pestiferous Passengers Already On The Loose

[Killjoy]

Sweet Holy Hullaballoo, sports fans !

The plague vectors are already out there.
Everybody ready for the next round of mask & jab mandates - if we live that long...

Hantavirus latest updates: U.S. among countries searching for passengers who left Dutch cruise ship after 1st death​

The U.S. is among a number of countries working to prevent further spread of hantavirus after an outbreak on a cruise ship.

The operator of the Dutch vessel, Oceanwide Expeditions, said 29 passengers, including six Americans, could be at risk of carrying the virus after they left the MV Hondius at St. Helena on April 24, shortly after the first passenger died. The whereabouts of many of these passengers are unknown.

 

[C C]

If a cruise ship not only has the "fortune" to pick up the Andes virus (usually restricted to South America). but also the supplemental "luck" of it involving the rare occurrence of such passing from person to person (but usually not easily), and that in turn being the yet more extraordinary serendipity of a completely new form that instead is highly infectious without the aid of rodents... Then that would be the kind "jackpot" triple chance that would give conspiracy theorists job security for years ahead (the latter waiting eagerly for further developments).
_

 

[Pinball1970]

If this spreads to the US, Trump might think that halting funding to the WHO and CDC was maybe not such a good idea.

 

[exchemist]

If a cruise ship not only has the "fortune" to pick up the Andes virus (usually restricted to South America). but also the supplemental "luck" of it involving the rare occurrence of such passing from person to person (but usually not easily), and that in turn being the yet more extraordinary serendipity of a completely new form that instead is highly infectious without the aid of rodents... Then that would be the kind "jackpot" triple chance that would give conspiracy theorists job security for years ahead (the latter waiting eagerly for further developments).
_

Quite. It seems highly unlikely this will spread.

 

[Killjoy]

If a cruise ship not only has the "fortune" to pick up the Andes virus (usually restricted to South America). but also the supplemental "luck" of it involving the rare occurrence of such passing from person to person (but usually not easily), and that in turn being the yet more extraordinary serendipity of a completely new form that instead is highly infectious without the aid of rodents... Then that would be the kind "jackpot" triple chance that would give conspiracy theorists job security for years ahead (the latter waiting eagerly for further developments).
_

The obviously bogus cover story for how it started is already out there:
They visited a landfill on a bird-watching tour !!!!???

Argentina will start testing rats for hantavirus after couple contracted deadly strain — and cases shot up 86% in just a year​

Argentine officials said a now-deceased Dutch couple picked up a rare strain of the virus from rodents while visiting a landfill during a bird-watching tour in the city of Ushuaia — just days before they boarded the cruise on March 20.

 

[Killjoy]

Quite. It seems highly unlikely this will spread.

Hopefully not. Still, one has to wonder what the other potential carriers have been up to since leaving the ship. I have to admit my only info on the particular variant of the virus in question amounts to someone telling me that it's only spread between people by an exchange of bodily fluids.
Does this amount to a little as inhaling a smidge of somebody's expelled sneeze, or getting a smooch from them as a casual greeting, though - or is it more like I'd have to get their blood in my bloodstream somehow ?

 

[Sarkus]

If this spreads to the US, Trump might think that halting funding to the WHO and CDC was maybe not such a good idea.

Maybe he'll declare war on it, and when it comes to nothing will claim it as another war he ended. Peace Prize!!

But, seriously, can you imagine a pandemic in the US that has RFK Jnr and Trump at the head of the reaction team??

 

[Killjoy]

Maybe he'll declare war on it, and when it comes to nothing will claim it as another war he ended. Peace Prize!!

hmmm...

An epidemic could make for a handy "emergency" justifying, say... ...suspending elections, because all those people congregating constitute "super-spreader events".

 

[TheVat]

hmmm...

An epidemic could make for a handy "emergency" justifying, say... ...suspending elections, because all those people congregating constitute "super-spreader events".

That would make for an entertaining cognitive dissonance with his professed loathing for mail-in voting. Especially if more GOP are retiring from Congress in 2026. (House vacancies require special elections and not appointments)

 

[exchemist]

Hopefully not. Still, one has to wonder what the other potential carriers have been up to since leaving the ship. I have to admit my only info on the particular variant of the virus in question amounts to someone telling me that it's only spread between people by an exchange of bodily fluids.
Does this amount to a little as inhaling a smidge of somebody's expelled sneeze, or getting a smooch from them as a casual greeting, though - or is it more like I'd have to get their blood in my bloodstream somehow ?

Seems pretty hard to transmit person to person. There’s a risk of a scare because people are twitchy after covid, but this reminds me more of the great monkeypox scare of a few years ago. That one fizzled as soon as the journalists’ attention was grabbed by the next thing.

 

[exchemist]

Maybe he'll declare war on it, and when it comes to nothing will claim it as another war he ended. Peace Prize!!

But, seriously, can you imagine a pandemic in the US that has RFK Jnr and Trump at the head of the reaction team??

The manufacturers of bleach and deworming preparations would be rubbing their hands - and no doubt Trump Jnr and creepy Kushner would be buying shares in them, just ahead of presidential announcements.

 

[C C]

The obviously bogus cover story for how it started is already out there:
They visited a landfill on a bird-watching tour !!!!???

Argentina will start testing rats for hantavirus after couple contracted deadly strain — and cases shot up 86% in just a year​

Calls to mind the recent, mild petting farm outbreak of cryptosporidium: "Health officials are now investigating the cases ... Cryptosporidium, a disease carried by a wide range of farm animals ... The infection can be contracted by touching animals or through contact with animal enclosures, fields, gates, and fences." (No rodent petting in Argentina, though, and is there that much contact with barriers and gates during bird-watching activities?)

Orthohantavirus andesense might become a new STD at best. Wouldn't affect Gen-Z much, since they're reportedly the most sexually challenged age bracket since Victorian inhibitions. And even Baby Boomers have surely become too elderly to mimic the 60s and 70s again. So the ball is in the court of X and Y to make something interesting of the pathogen (primarily Y).
_

 

[TheVat]

Can't say I ever went to a landfill on a birdwatching tour.

Orthohantavirus andesense might become a new STD at best. Wouldn't affect Gen-Z much, since they're reportedly the most sexually challenged age bracket since Victorian inhibitions.

An STD with a 40% mortality rate might mean a new generation which came mostly from artificial insemination. What a weird thought. That might bring the primitivist MAHA crowd around on vaccine research.

 

[Pinball1970]

But, seriously, can you imagine a pandemic in the US that has RFK Jnr and Trump at the head of the reaction team??

Trump actually seemed to make sense in 2020 when COVID hit. He had obviously been briefed and I remember him saying something like, "Maybe we can the numbers down (dead) to 100,000 or 200,000..." A reference to isolation, lock down and social distancing.
I remember thinking, thank fuck for that, he's read the report (Professor Ian Ferguson or perhaps a SARS 2003 briefing)

Then he got COVID, then he went nuts and said a lot of stupid shit.
RFK went nuts in the 60s and said and continues to say a lot of stupid shit.
Between them they would kill a lot of people should an outbreak take hold, another SARS virus or measles say.