Medical Expert Dr. Ashish Jha Denies Hantavirus Is the Next Pandemic
Hantavirus Medical Expert Pumps Brakes on Pandemic 2.0 Panic
Published
The hantavirus scare is giving some people COVID flashbacks ... but this virus apparently doesn't have the same bite.
Dr. Ashish Jha -- the former White House COVID response coordinator -- stopped by "TMZ Live" to tell everyone to exhale a little over the deadly outbreak aboard the MV Hondius ... because while he's worried about people exposed on that ship, he tells us this thing is NOT shaping up to be another COVID-style nightmare.
Check it out ... he assures us, "This is not gonna be a pandemic. That's not how this virus is going to behave."
Jha says the biggest concern right now is passengers who were packed together for hours at a time aboard the ship -- not random people brushing past each other in public. According to him, hantavirus simply doesn't spread easily enough to spiral into a global pandemic.
"You're not gonna get it passing somebody in a grocery store. You're not gonna get it kind of through casual contact," he said.
He added that the virus only appears to spread once someone is already showing symptoms -- meaning fever, headaches and feeling sick are the real red flags -- not healthy-looking people quietly walking around during the incubation period.
Jha says that's a huge distinction from the early days of COVID ... when asymptomatic spread became one of the biggest problems on the planet.
The incubation period -- which can stretch for weeks -- is what's freaking a lot of people out ... but Jha says there's still no evidence people without symptoms are spreading the virus.
And for anyone worried hantavirus could suddenly mutate into a super-strain the way COVID did ... Jha says experts have already genetically analyzed the current outbreak strain and so far, it looks basically identical to previous versions seen over the last several decades.
