There have now been 11 confirmed cases of hantavirus connected to an outbreak from the luxury cruise ship MV Hondius, which departed Argentina on April 1. Although transmission is difficult, three people have died, and with a mortality up to 40 percent, global spread would be devastating. It’s also no surprise that people are concerned — particularly since we are just six years out from the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which showed us exactly how capitalism and the ruling class respond to pandemics.
The Hantavirus(es) and the Cruise
The hantaviruses are part of a group of viruses found primarily in rodents. And while humans typically acquire them in contact with rodent feces, the Andes strain can spread from human to human, though experts have claimed transmission in this way is very difficult. The virus has a six- to seven-week incubation period, which makes the virus harder to track and allows people to go long periods of time without exhibiting symptoms. All of this, plus the virus’s very high mortality rate, makes human to human transmission all the more concerning.
So if more people have been exposed, where are they now? The almost 150 passengers and crew members have mostly returned to their home countries around the world for ongoing intensive monitoring and treatment. The WHO has left it up to each country to determine necessary precautions which vary widely from strict quarantine in healthcare settings (Spain) to home quarantine (the Netherlands).
In the United States, 18 of the passengers are being treated at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine (UNMC) in Omaha. Another two passengers were taken to Emory University’s Serious Communicable Diseases unit in Atlanta. Peculiarly, and somewhat troublingly, while patients at UNMC are supposed to be monitored for 42 days, Dr. Brendan Jackson, the CDC’s acting director of high-consequence pathogens and pathology, recently said patients may be able to go home during the monitoring period, but only if they have support to isolate at home.
Most recently, U.S. officials said they were monitoring additional people across the country who were passengers on an April 25 flight from Johannesburg and exposed to someone known to have been infected, bringing the new total of those being monitored in the U.S. to 41.
The Spectre of Covid-19
As the hantavirus situation plays out, officials around the world, including in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, have repeatedly tried to reassure the public, downplaying the risk of large-scale spread. But there is plenty to still be concerned about. As the New York Times reports:
<blockquote>Because of deep staffing cuts the Trump administration has made to the C.D.C. and other health agencies, the government has far fewer people to respond to outbreaks, from trainees and contractors who can be deployed to do boots-on-the-ground epidemiology to senior leaders who can coordinate responses across the U.S. government and elsewhere. And because President Trump withdrew the country from the World Health Organization, the United States does not receive regular information from member states about emerging health threats.<blockquote>
And this is just specifically related to disease response. Whether it is approving forever chemicals in pesticides, scraping the endangerment finding, or deciding that it will no longer evaluate the health impact and lives saved when regulating air pollution from new power plants, the Trump administration is not showing signs that it’s concerned about public health overall. But it’s not just the Trump administration — both parties are more than willing to sacrifice lives at the altars of imperialism (cough, Genocide Joe, cough) and capitalism.
As a physician who worked in hospitals throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, I’m inherently skeptical despite expert reassurances. Working in healthcare has provided me example after example reinforcing how little the ruling class cares about the health of the general population. And the pandemic showed us clearly that capitalism does not care about people unless they are generating profit.
During Covid’s peak, we saw how the bourgeoisie around the world were more than willing to reopen economies and force people back to work in order to keep the profit flowing. Hell, what do they care about any of us, to be honest? They know they can run to their luxury condos — or even their disaster bunkers — as we all are put at risk. It’s in this context that what to believe and not to believe around the response to the Andes virus is inevitably going to be blurred by how the bourgeoisie managed Covid-19.
Whether it’s downplaying the transmissibility of the disease, distorting the scientific data, or focusing on magic bullet solutions, capitalist states are making many of the same mistakes they made in 2020. Capitalism inevitably breeds crises, yet also tries to come up with profitable, commensurable “solutions” to the crises it generates all while avoiding any regulation that could slow profit accumulation.
Under this system, there’s an aura of “don’t worry about it, we can innovate our way to a solution.” Rising greenhouse gases driving us toward climate collapse? Don’t worry, we can just suck up pollution — or better yet, “blot out” the sun. During Covid’s peak, instead of making sure safety measures were in place and paying people to stay safe at home, the focus was put on rolling out vaccines as the magic bullet to reopen economies. All this while the virus continued to spread, leading to excess death and countless cases of long Covid. God forbid people be able to shelter in place or keep themselves safe as a deadly virus is on the loose. This would be too threatening to the system’s maximization of the extraction of surplus value.
Today, similar discussions are being thrown around with the hantavirus. From NBC to Forbes, the discussion is already leaning toward how a vaccine is in the works, and the risk of hantavirus is continually downplayed.
Hantavirus or Not, Capitalism Will Breed Pandemics
Whether this virus becomes the next devastating pandemic or not isn’t the real question. The real question is: what happens when — not if — the next one hits?
Under a global economic system that constantly places profit above public well-being, it’s only a matter of time before the next pandemic arrives. Covid-19 showed us this and the current reality only further confirms it. Whether it’s gutting public health programs, destroying the environment, funding genocides, or cutting CDC staffing while withdrawing from the WHO, the message is clear: health and well-being are secondary.
Hopefully the hantavirus outbreak does not continue to spread and it actually just serves as a warning shot. Regardless, as the ruling class continues to destroy ecosystems, push wildlife into closer contact with humans, and defund the very institutions meant to protect us, they are actively manufacturing the conditions for the next global health catastrophe.
And when that catastrophe comes, we can’t expect capitalism to save us. We’ll get the same playbook: reassuring lies, profit-driven “solutions,” and a ruling class that runs and hides in luxury enclaves while the rest of us are sacrificed at the altar of capital.
We cannot innovate our way out of this cycle. In the search for magic bullets to each pandemic, the reality remains: no magic bullet will fix a system that breeds pandemics for profit. We need a system that prioritizes human need over capital accumulation — a system of free, accessible healthcare for all, controlled by workers and patients rather than insurance companies and pharmaceutical executives. A system where the working class controls both healthcare and research institutions, along with media companies that disseminate public health information.
At the same time, we need massive investment in public health infrastructure, not austerity and cuts. We need an internationalist, coordinated response to disease, not one driven by profit and national interests. We need an end to the environmental destruction that fuels zoonotic disease emergence, and an end to the wars and poverty that create the conditions where pathogens thrive.
And we will have to fight for it — in our workplaces, in our unions, and in our communities, building the world we need, because the ruling class will never build it for us. The next pandemic is coming. The only question is whether we will be ready.
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