Essay by Eric Worrall
Just one problem – Ushuaia, the source of the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, has a comparable climate to Prince Rupert in British Columbia.
How climate change could help hantavirus find more hosts
Experts say extreme weather is boosting the odds that the pathogens carried by rodents will spill over into human populations.
The cruise ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina, in April with plans to ferry 147 passengers and crew members to some of the most remote places on earth, including Antarctica. But the ship, named the MV Hondius, had its voyage cut short by a rare virus that has killed three and infected several others.
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The emergency also points to another growing challenge for global public health: Climate change is altering the rainfall, vegetation, and habitat conditions that influence rodent populations — changes that experts say boost the odds that the pathogens these animals carry will spill over into human populations.
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Prolonged drought sends rats and mice into populated areas in search of food, which can put people at higher risk of contracting the virus. Sudden rainfall following drought causes trees and shrubs to produce a windfall of nuts and seeds, which tend to benefit rodents and boost their numbers — all the while increasing the risk of transmission from animal to human.
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Read more: https://grist.org/health/how-climate-change-could-help-hantavirus-find-more-hosts/
My question – Australia has frequent weather extremes and rodent plagues. So why aren’t we overrun with Hantavirus? Hantavirus antibodies have been detected in Aussie rodents, but significant Hantavirus infection isn’t a thing in Australia.
From the Aussie CSIRO;
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Do we have hantaviruses in Australia?
Australia is unique in the global hantavirus picture. It is the only inhabited continent where no confirmed human cases of hantavirus infection have been recorded.
However, antibodies to hantavirus have been detected in some Australian rodents, suggesting related viruses are likely present at low levels.
Several explanations for why there hasn’t been any reported cases have been proposed. One possibility is the lack of diagnosis: perhaps Australian hantavirus only causes a mild, feverish illness with kidney involvement that could easily be attributed to other causes.
However, anyone who is unwell with persistent or serious symptoms such as respiratory issues should consult their GP for advice. This is especially the case for travellers returning from parts of Europe, Asia or the Americas.
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Read more: https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/Articles/2026/May/Hantavirus-explainer
Maybe a few mild human cases slipped through the net, but my point is given the low prevalence of Hantavirus in Australian rodent populations, despite our extreme cycles of drought and flooding rain, and a much warmer climate than Ushuaia in Argentina, it seems reasonable to conclude a warmer climate and greater climate extremes do not cause more Hantavirus cases. It also seems likely something about our warm climate is killing the Hantavirus which is already present in Aussie rodent populations before it becomes a significant problem.
Maybe the virus just can’t stand warm conditions. A lot of viruses can’t.
Who knows, if we get a bit more global warming, maybe cold climate places like Ushuaia will also benefit from less Hantavirus, just like warm climate Australia.
Is there anything that global warming cannot do?
Yes. It cannot repair my frayed shoelace.
It will be warm enough for sandals. 😏
I will have to clip my toenails. Toenails grow due to climate change dontchknow.
Flat tire the other day . . . I took comfort in being able to blame it on “climate change”.
Late at work can now be blamed on “climate change”.
I can’t go to work today due to climate change. I demand to be paid anyway.
If we learn to use it properly it may teach us how to built a time machine or master nuclear fusion.
It already helped a chinese lab create a virus, though some crazy conspiracy theorists claim they got the know-how from Fauci.
The current problem is the Red Chinese scientists at the Wuhan bioweapon lab stopped receiving US funding for GoF research once the SARS-COV-2 virus outbreak occurred.
Since Anthony Fauci retired as head of NIAID in December 2022, he is no longer capable of surreptitiously funneling US taxpayer money to the WIV via “cutout” companies such EcoHealth Alliance, run by his friend Dr. Peter Daszak . . . or so I’m told.
dont believe all youre told;-) theyd find a way
like the success at closing down RIDGLAN vivisection beagle hell they will/are offshoring to less stringent /no/ mutable laws and tax breaks to boot
yeah from conspiracy to fact used to take years now its months 😉 and almost ALL have proved correct funny that huh?
As a “Theory” it CAN’T be Falsified.
In the US, hantavirus seems to be centered in the desert southwest, around the 4 corners area. That is one of the hottest places in the US. Seems hantavirus already likes hot places, or its host rodents do.
the rats n mice come INTO homes etc to get food and cooler seems from reports Ive read hikers etc pick it up in the wayside huts they sleep in
Knock sense into the climate worriers
My wife showed me a satirical article “Hantavirus kills two in meth lab explosion”.
My wife and took a cruise to Antarctica via Elephant Island and the South Georgia Islands about 10 years ago. That entire area was a very prolific whaling area and the rats carried on the ships then resulted in large rat populations on many of the islands in the region, hence the virus problem.
From Bret Weinstein on Darkhorse podcast, it appears that the evidence for human to human transmission of the south American version is on the weak side. I wonder about dust brought on board by the couple that went bird watching. I also wonder about mice abord the ship.
A lot of these viruses may be marginally airborne. Like there are questions lingering about Ebola, which is an airborne virus in pigs. Despite not being considered airborne in humans, Ebola seems to have a way of sometimes infecting people nearby with no clear explanation of how the infection jumped to the new victim.
One way Hantavirus kills is by causing a breakdown in lung tissue so the lungs fill with blood, so maybe a little airborne.
Of course if some young biochemist in China decides Hantavirus is a good gain of function toy to impress the boss, all bets are off :-(.
I doubt if there are any mice on that ship.
Indeed.
If you’ll excuse my ignorance and allow the asking of a legitimate question, why? Rats are definitely more prevalent aboard sea going vessels to the best of my knowledge, but from what I know of the grain shipping side of sea going vessels, mice are not unknown by any stretch of the imagination. I’m assuming the rats would predate on the mice, limiting their numbers to an extent, but full elimination?
Prior to this event I’d only known of Hanta virus being associated with urine of specific species of mice, specifically Peromiscus maniculatus (my spelling may be off here). At least that’s what I thought most cases were in Canada/U.S. We haven’t had an outbreak in Canada that has been publicized for more than 20 years; it may be more common in the American Southwest. So seeing rats being blames led me to wonder if this was media misspeak.
That last Canadian outbreak it was reported that the virus was transmitted via urine that subsequently aerosolized and was picked up via inhalation. Again, that’s from my memory and over 20 years old.
Never doubt something you cannot prove.
It’s a WHO driven scare.
Next.
Climate boomers wet dream was to bring climate change to your doorstep in the form of “new diseases”. They’ve been talking about it since the early 90s. The dream so possessed them that they went so far as to create one in the form of COVID-19.As their hold over the population slips further they will become more extreme.
So diseases that killed of large part of the North American native population was because of climate change.
”There is no consensus on when the Little Ice Age began,[15] but a series of events before the known climatic minima have often been referenced. According to J. M. Lamb of Cambridge University, the Little Ice Age was already underway in Canada and Switzerland and in the wider North Atlantic region in the 13th and the 14th centuries. In the 13th century, pack ice began advancing southwards in the North Atlantic, as did glaciers in Greenland. Anecdotal evidence suggests expanding glaciers almost worldwide. Based on radiocarbon dating of roughly 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact that were collected from beneath ice caps on Baffin Island and Iceland, Miller et al. (2012)[8] state that cold summers and ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300, followed by “a substantial intensification” from 1430 to 1455.[8]”
Prince Rupert…now there’s a piercing comment!
That would be a Prince Albert
In a can.
Usually, it’s a pile of mouse poo that gets disturbed and airborne that causes an outbreak – right? Happens in the southwest once on a while. I remember the one at Yosemite NP not too long ago, in the Curry Company rental tent cabins. Brrrr, I’ve spent a few nights in those.
This part is the usual and always amusing.
“Experts say extreme weather is…”
Really? Which ones? Funny how these supposed experts are always anonymous. And always, always, always, they use the word “could”.
Or “may,” or “might,” or other such weasel words.
“Prolonged drought sends rats and mice into populated areas in search of food, which can put people at higher risk of contracting the virus.”
Right there- if this is true, then why is there not a constant Hantavirus wave all across the Sahel? The Middle East?
Exactly.
reports of rats being really bad in Palestine right now says expect an outbreak of something nasty real soon already reports of illness of unknown cause rashes breathing etc WHO even mentioned the Plague word in a report yesterday
Palestine?
Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, died of hantavirus in their Santa Fe NM home last year. I don’t recall any wailing about epidemic, much less pandemic. Nor was there any quarantine.
There are more than 20 strains of hantavirus. The current outbreak is of the Andes strain, the only one known to be able to pass between people. The strain that killed Betsy could not.
So now it’s hantavirus that will be increasing because of climate change. Does that mean that skin cancer will decline because pollution will block the sun’s harmful rays? Or how about the common cold since warming temperatures will make them more unlikely? And if climate change will cause cause a greater likelihood of hantavirus, how do we know it won’t do the same for the bubonic plague? One thing is guaranteed from the alarmists: they’ll always find some sort of natural or man-made problem that can be attributed to an environment that’s being messed up by human activities, fossil fuel consumption in particular.
My take on this:
The “rats” are abandoning the sinking ship of “climate change” and have got to go somewhere . . . hence the likely spread of hantavirus, along with alarmism, throughout the world.
/sarc
Which climate is already conducive to rodent borne diseases. Rats likes them some warmth, just like peoples do, and they loves them some garbage, too. So yea, that locale is already rat disease prone.
I am actually shocked that chestnut stayed on the branch this long.
Obviously, I expected journalists to jump at the opportunity. It’s honestly sad. I feel sorry for them. And even more sorry for their readers.
Well, aside from the omnipotence of human-caused climate change (though “omnipotence” is putting it mildly: I’ve been pissing in the dark for four weeks waiting for it to graciously change the light bulb), this hantavirus does seem pretty serious. I’d be curious to know what people here think about it. Afraid of an outbreak, a pandemic? Personally, I’m not exactly reassured, but I’ve always had a somewhat anxious streak, to be fair.
“Obviously, I expected journalists to jump at the opportunity.”
Rest assured, no journalists were involved.
Since they forgot in 2020 to blaim climate change for the outbreak of the Covid plandemic now they come up with this ploy. Hey better late than never.
Couldn’t 47 have bombed just the UN and WHO headquarters instead of Iran?..The world would certainly be a better place for the price of a couple nickles instead of billions upon billions wasted…sarc
The Andes virus is primarily carried by the long-tailed pygmy rice rat. This rat does not occur in Ushuaia but lives in northern Patagonia, more than a thousand miles to the north on the Argentinian mainland. It is therefore likely that the unfortunate patient zero was infected well before they travelled further south to board the cruise and not in Usuaia.
Yes. From what I’ve been hearing (grain of salt needed?), the incubation period can be several weeks. During that time the patient is not contagious. Only when they start showing symptoms…
having lived through 12mths of a mouseplague with crap pee n bodies all over impossible to keep every ( ANY)surface clean and I wasnt the only household in similar straits.. not one case in Aus . the variant here is different and as per above rare . and were about to have another go round with mice as well as Locusts being seen in yorke peninsula areas ive spotted a couple of locusts here but so far the colds knocking em round luckily for our farmers
Is punctuation not a thing in Oz?
i mentioned this earlier had to re find the link
https://www.sott.net/article/506240-Rodent-infestation-caused-by-Israels-destruction-of-Gaza-is-now-creating-a-public-health-catastrophe
Hamas’ destruction of Gaza.
More than 90% live in tents … More than 90% has nothing to do. Food is as usual over the past decades shipped in, paid for by foreign tax payers. So 90% idle pairs of hands. And nobody has the idea to organise a big cleanup? Or is that also something that others have to do as well? The reason is simple. Victimhood is so convenient.