CDC leader says hantavirus not "a five-alarm fire bell"

Washington — Jay Bhattacharya, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, defended the federal government's response to the deadly hantavirus outbreak , saying it doesn't make sense to sound "a five-alarm fire bell" because the risk to the public is "much, much lower" than what we saw with the COVID-19 pandemic. "It's very different than COVID, and we should treat it differently than COVID," Bhattacharya told "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil on Monday when asked about the lack of daily briefings on the outbreak. Bhattacharya, who also leads the National Institutes of Health, said hantavirus "is a more deadly disease if you get it," but added that the "epidemiological risk is very, very different" than COVID . "Unlike COVID, the way that people get it from person to person is much, much more difficult for that to happen," he said of the way the virus spreads. There have been at least three deaths and 10 confirmed or suspected cases of the rare, rodent-borne illness linked to the outbreak on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius, which had been sailing the Atlantic Ocean. Eighteen American passengers who were aboard the ship returned to the U.S. on Monday and are being monitored at medical facilities in Nebraska and Georgia. According to health officials, the hantavirus outbreak identified on the cruise ship is the Andes strain of the virus, which can spread between people but requires prolonged close contact with someone who is ill. …