CINCINNATI — The spread of hantavirus on a Dutch cruise ship and beyond has produced imagery of health officials in personal protective equipment, masked and quarantined patients and constant coverage by national news outlets with a stark resemblance to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The similarity hasn't gone unnoticed, so WCPO wanted to answer one question: Is this anything like what happened in 2019 and 2020?
We reached out to Dr. Daliah Wachs to get her take on it. Wachs acknowledged that the imagery can understandably push people to compare hantavirus with COVID-19, especially when you consider the case of the Diamond Princess cruise ship early in the spread of coronavirus.
"One thing that this is kind of re-traumatizing people to is what happened with COVID, because the individuals were not allowed to disembark," she said. "We saw that with the initial cruise ship, I believe that was off the coast of Japan, 2019, 2020, where the passengers couldn't disembark."
WATCH: We try to get answers about the potential for the spread of hantavirus
That, Wachs said, was largely the last comparison that could be drawn between the two outbreaks.
Humans can normally only contract the hantavirus through contact with urine or feces from infected mice. The hantavirus strain believed to have impacted this cruise ship, however, can pass from person to person.
"Even so, even with this strain, it has to be very, very close contact with somebody very sick," Wachs said. "In stark comparison to what we saw with COVID."
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acting head Jay Bhattacharya told the Scripps News Group that spread was unlikely.
"There is no risk at this point to any other people in the United States," he said.
Wachs said COVID-19 was also a novel strain, which changes the way health officials react.
"By the time we identified and knew what we were dealing with, millions of people had it," she said.
Hantavirus, on the other hand, is known globally, with protection plans in place to contain the spread quickly.
We asked what precautions people should take to ensure there would be no issues. She said zero tolerance for rodents was key.
"Mice are cute," she said. "My cats bring in mice from outside all the time. Mice carry disease."
Ohio Department of Health officials said they're coordinating with officials on both national and international levels to respond to the hantavirus outbreak.
"This includes individuals from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization being on-site to assist with repatriation of passengers back to their home countries in a safe way. To date, the CDC has not notified the Ohio Department of Health of any returning passengers that have been affected," a statement read.
A Northern Kentucky Health Department official also indicated they were monitoring the virus, but didn't have cause for alarm in the region.
