It's not as scary as COVID-19 was, but it's no less painful now
In the wake of new hantavirus cases linked to a Dutch-flagged ship, a man who lost his mother and sister to the illness in 2002 — and nearly lost himself — is asking the public to pause before surrendering to fear. Gilbert Zermeño's survival is not a story of reassurance so much as a story of understanding: the virus is real, its grief is real, but its biology does not lend itself to the pandemic-scale catastrophe that misinformation is already constructing. Health authorities on both sides of the Atlantic echo the same conclusion, grounding their guidance not in optimism but in the nature of the disease itself.
- Nine confirmed or suspected hantavirus cases tied to a single ship have reignited public anxiety, with three deaths already stoking comparisons to COVID-19 that experts say are scientifically unfounded.
- Online misinformation is spreading faster than the virus itself, turning a rare and poorly understood illness into a source of widespread, disproportionate fear.
- The WHO and CDC have moved quickly to clarify that hantavirus does not spread between people without symptoms, requires close contact for transmission, and poses no realistic pandemic threat.
- Zermeño, speaking from the specific authority of someone who buried family members and survived the illness himself, is urging people to consult medical professionals rather than search engines.
- The practical danger remains what it has always been — rodent droppings in enclosed spaces — and prevention, not panic, is where health experts and survivors alike are directing attention.
Gilbert Zermeño was cleaning a family home in Texas in 2002 when he inhaled something invisible. Rodent droppings. Ordinary dust. His mother had just died from hantavirus. His sister had just died from it too — though doctors initially blamed sepsis, and the correct diagnosis came only weeks later. By then, Zermeño was already hospitalized in Phoenix, his body fighting the same illness that had taken them. He survived. Many do not.
Twenty-four years later, he is a photojournalist in Arizona watching a familiar spiral begin. A Dutch-flagged ship has generated nine confirmed or suspected hantavirus cases. Three people are dead. The word "virus" is enough to send people into the internet's darker corridors, assembling catastrophes from fragments. Zermeño knows that impulse. He also knows what it gets wrong.
"It's not as scary as COVID-19 was," he told CBS News — not to minimize the deaths, but to separate grief from misinformation. The WHO and CDC have issued parallel clarifications: hantavirus does not spread through casual contact, does not travel between people without symptoms, and carries no realistic pandemic potential. These are not comforting guesses. They are conclusions drawn from the biology of the virus itself.
What distinguishes Zermeño's voice is that it carries both loss and survival. His family was not diagnosed quickly — the illness is rare enough that doctors looked elsewhere first. He recovered partly because he had advocates in medicine who pushed for the right tests. His advice now is grounded in that experience: consult your doctor, understand your exposure risk, and know that person-to-person transmission is, in his word, minuscule. The virus lives in rodent droppings. It does not pass through conversation or proximity.
The ship is being investigated. The cases are being monitored. But the story Zermeño is trying to tell is not about a new threat — it is about an old one that has always existed, that claimed his family, and that remains dangerous precisely when it is misunderstood. Fear without knowledge, he suggests, is its own kind of contagion. He survived one. He is trying to help others survive the other.
Gilbert Zermeño was cleaning his family home in Texas in 2002 when he inhaled something invisible and lethal. Rodent droppings, dust, the ordinary debris of a house. His mother had just died. His sister had just died. Both from hantavirus—though it took doctors weeks to figure that out. They had initially blamed sepsis. By the time the diagnosis came, Zermeño was already in a Phoenix hospital, his own body fighting the same virus that had killed them.
Twenty-four years later, Zermeño is a photojournalist in Arizona, and he is watching the news cycle spiral. A ship with a Dutch flag has generated nine confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus. Three people are dead. The word "virus" alone is enough to send people searching the internet, reading fragments, building catastrophes in their minds. Zermeño knows what that feels like. He also knows what the disease actually is.
"It takes you back," he told CBS News, speaking about the resurgence of cases and the memories they dredged up. "It's no less painful now than it was back then. It's hard. I'm not going to lie." But he also said something else: "You need to do some research on this because it's not as scary as COVID-19 was." He was not minimizing his own loss or the losses of the three people who have died in the recent outbreak. He was trying to separate fact from the panic that misinformation breeds.
The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have both issued statements designed to do the same work. Ann Lindstrand, a WHO representative in Cape Verde, said there is no realistic risk of a pandemic-level threat. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the CDC, was more specific: hantavirus is not spread by people without symptoms, transmission requires close contact, and the risk to Americans is very low. These are not reassurances born from ignorance. They are conclusions drawn from the biology of the virus itself.
What makes Zermeño's voice distinct is that he is not speaking from a position of abstract expertise. He is speaking from a position of survival and loss. His mother and sister were not diagnosed quickly. The rarity of the illness meant doctors looked elsewhere first. Zermeño himself was lucky—he had family members in medicine who could advocate for him, who could push for the right tests, who could get him the right treatment. He recovered. Many do not.
His advice is practical and grounded. Listen to your medical professionals. Have a plan if you think you have been exposed. Know that person-to-person transmission is, in his word, minuscule. The virus lives in rodent droppings. It does not live in the air between people. It does not spread through a handshake or a conversation. It spreads through exposure to contaminated material—the kind of exposure that happens when someone cleans a house where rodents have nested, or works in a space where rodent populations are present.
The recent cases are being monitored. The ship is being investigated. But the real story, the one Zermeño is trying to tell, is not about a new threat emerging. It is about an old threat that has always been there, that killed his mother and sister, that nearly killed him, and that will kill again if people do not understand how it actually works. Fear without understanding is its own kind of virus. Zermeño survived one. He is trying to help others survive the other.
Notable Quotes
It takes you back, and it's no less painful now than it was back then. It's hard. I'm not going to lie.— Gilbert Zermeño, hantavirus survivor
Hantavirus is not spread by people without symptoms, transmission requires close contact, and the risk to the American public is very low.— Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the CDC
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you heard about these new cases, what went through your mind first?
The same thing that goes through anyone's mind when they hear a word that changed their life. I was back in that house in Texas. I was back in the hospital. But I also knew something the panic doesn't—that this is rare, and it's not spreading the way people think it is.
Your mother and sister were misdiagnosed at first. How much did that delay cost them?
We'll never know exactly. But I know it cost them time. Time they didn't have. And I know that if doctors had caught it faster, things might have been different. That's why I keep saying: listen to your doctors, push for answers, don't accept the first explanation.
You're telling people not to panic, but you lost two family members. Isn't that a hard thing to ask?
I'm not asking people not to grieve or not to take it seriously. I'm asking them to be smart about it. There's a difference between caution and catastrophe. COVID taught us what catastrophe looks like. This isn't that.
What do you want people to actually do? Not what to avoid—what to do.
Know where rodents live. Know what their droppings look like. If you've been exposed, get tested. Have a conversation with a doctor who takes you seriously. And understand that the odds are in your favor. They weren't in my mother's and sister's favor, but they are in most people's.
Do you think the ship cases will change anything about how we prepare for this?
I hope they change how we talk about it. Not with fear, but with clarity. We know how this spreads. We know how to prevent it. The question is whether we'll actually do those things, or whether we'll just be afraid until the next news cycle moves on.