bmj.com
Hantavirus outbreak should reset WHO’s default approach to airborne risk
The multinational outbreak of Andes hantavirus (ANDV) linked to cruise ship travel should prompt the World Health Organization (WHO) to change its default response to the risk of airborne transmission of the virus. Hantavirus is a pathogen with documented person-to-person transmission and high case fatality. Therefore, the starting point should not be to downplay the risk of airborne transmission until it is definitively proven. The starting point should be the immediate adoption of precautionary measures to reduce airborne transmission, such as respirator use by healthcare workers, cases, and close contacts; ventilation optimisation; avoidance of unfiltered air recirculation; and portable HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filtration in all enclosed quarantine and transport settings. On 8 May 2026, WHO issued several documents that point in different directions. A Disease Outbreak News report acknowledged possible person-to-person transmission, but largely framed precautions around droplet and contact transmission outside aerosol generating procedures.1 By contrast, WHO’s guidance for managing contacts of Andes virus cases and disembarkation from the cruise ship adopted much more precautionary measures, including quarantine, universal respirator use during disembarkation, respirators for healthcare workers …
![1.85 Professor Noakes told the Inquiry in Module 2: Core decision-making and political governance that:
“[T]here was just a tendency to assume the other transmission routes, and then require the evidence for airborne transmission.”141
Such a mindset was consistent with Ms Imrie’s defence of the initial position of infection prevention and control guidance, which was that “there wasn’t enough good evidence to say that we were uncertain”.142 Members of the UK IPC Cell thus appeared to consider that it was necessary to disprove pre-existing beliefs rather than keeping an open mind to the potential risks of all plausible transmission routes.
Source: https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/reports/module-3-full-report/#:~:text=there%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20enough%20good%20evidence%20to%20say%20that%20we%20were%20uncertain](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ou6sjyhswn7s3qyfqhw7mbk6/bafkreigbx7we7pmrtbgnh44kb34ziugwsxhe42gowqbtcn5f7x3fusnupe)
![[Text on an yellow octagon meant to look like the output of an overhead projector.]
The silent erosion of COVID-19 awareness & management in B.C.:
A TIMELINE
[A timeline of the year 2025 and the January of 2026. Numbered diamonds are placed on the timeline to mark the events below.]
1. April 16: Amount & timeliness of SARS-CoV-2 sample data uploaded to GISAID, an online repository, deteriorate.
2. May: The end of RAT Kit Distribution Program is announced in a professional newsletter. This provided free RAT kits to pharmacies.
3. May 31: RAT kits orders from this day onwards would not be reimbursed.
4. June: The BCCDC page dedicated to how COVID-19 spreads is removed.
5. September 1: Under the BC medical services plan, less than 20 people will be allowed in an online group medical visit. An unknown number of bed- & house-bound people will lose telehealth access to the BC-CLMF, a long COVID & ME/CFS clinic. Implementation delayed until January.
6. September 15: Vancouver Sun publishes a sponsored article, suggesting the program responsible for generating SARS-CoV-2 data from wastewater samples would be expanded & describes the then-current state of the program.
7. September 18: The wastewater surveillance program is cut: 8 of 12 wastewater treatment plants will no longer be monitored, and 1 sample will be taken per week instead of 3.
8. October 14: The year's vaccination campaign begins to widespread shortages.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:dy4l7kqcar73iaezbjxzwiui/bafkreibyc7hcwrwtwlid453tk3fv523vx3cziv4g5qksvdrks6b3ymxo2a)
![Everybody wanted it to be over, and Carolyn Abramson in the Globe said that once they … things changed once they lifted the travel advisory, the travel
advisory was a sort of a shift in the whole psychology in the city and all of a sudden everybody now was together.When the travel advisory came down, there
was the City, the Province, Health Canada, everybody
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SARS Commission Final Report: Volume Three © Spring of Fear
Did Politics Intrude?
was outraged and fighting together, and then when they got the travel advisory turned back, everybody
celebrated about that and once everybody were getting
back to normal and everybody was … that is part of why the lack of leadership. There should have been somebody who said … nobody questioned it. [Dr.] Jim Young went off to China to talk about our
successes and how we controlled it. [Dr.] Bonnie [Henry] went with him and [Dr.] Tony [Mazzulli] went with him and nobody said, “how do you know it is over?” including myself. None of us said “well, just because,” and it is such a simple question to ask and we blew it. It is just amazing everybody blew it.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ou6sjyhswn7s3qyfqhw7mbk6/bafkreiaaly6pkg2vrs5ziksycoka46yfowzgo4paou76lbb7mwvcy34qu4)
