Illnesses on a cruise ship aren’t new. Reports come of people contracting the norovirus, also known endearingly as the vomiting bug, or perhaps colds and flu spread.

But when a strain of hantavirus — one that can transmit from human to human — shows up and starts killing passengers, a lot of people start worrying that it might be early 2020 all over again.

Hantavirus won’t trigger a new pandemic

Well, you can relax a bit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called this a “level 3″ emergency response, which is the lowest level of emergency activation. Experts say the risk to the general public is low. Also, the CDC and the State Department are watching the 17 Americans who were aboard the Hondius closely to see if they exhibit any symptoms. One of the American passengers has tested positive for the virus.

So, this is not a COVID-like emergency that’s going to have Americans at each other’s throats again.

That doesn’t mean something like that can’t, or won’t, happen again. A global preparedness coalition called CEPI reckons we have about a 38% chance of experiencing another big one during our lifetimes.

I might feel a little better about that if we had handled the last pandemic better.

Lessons from 1918-19

Years ago, I used to wonder at how the 1918-19 influenza pandemic became known as “America’s forgotten pandemic.” How could a nation forget about a life-changing illness that killed an estimated 675,000 Americans and disrupted families and communities?

“Whatever the reason, Americans didn’t seem to want to talk about their experience during the pandemic,” journalist Becky Little wrote for History.com. “And because they were reluctant to talk or write about the pandemic, future generations weren’t always aware of it.”

Not that they could erase all the evidence. Anyone who wants to check old newspapers can find evidence of the devastation, as well as stories about people refusing to wear masks or cutting holes in them to fit a cigar.

But I’m wondering if we’re much different from people a century ago. Pandemics are messy, especially in a free society. Governments, operating with incomplete information about new diseases, make mistakes. Public health recommendations evolve and sometimes contradict themselves.

It didn’t help that the current head of the CDC, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, recently blocked publication of a study showing COVID-19 vaccines approximately cut in half the chances an adult would need an ER visit or hospitalization last fall and winter.

Our dismal COVID-19 record

I’m reminded of a 352-page book published in 2023 by medical, policy, biodefense and advocacy professionals who took a dry-eyed look at America’s response to the pandemic.

“No country’s performance is more disappointing than that of the United States,” the book said, noting the vast wealth and technical know-how of the country should have led to better outcomes.

As the Deseret News noted in a 2024 editorial, the book blamed health officials and politicians, among others, for not anticipating the lack of public trust and strategizing on ways to counter it.

“Facing a dangerous pandemic, they adopted the broadest, most ambitious and intrusive set of government controls on social behavior in the history of the United States,” the authors said.

And yet, that sort of strategizing for a distrustful public isn’t as easy as it may sound.

Things may not be as bad as they seem. Andrew Thurston, writing for Boston University’s The Brink, noted that, in our favor, “we’ve done this before and we have a lot of new tools — from vaccines to monitoring technology — to deploy.”

On the other side of the ledger, however, he quotes Nahid Bhadelia of Boston University’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases, saying hesitancy and health misinformation remain problems. She also believes climate change increases the chances for another outbreak and health disparities put everyone in greater danger.

All of this is exacerbated by an administration that appears vaccine-averse.

As I said, pandemics are messy. Fortunately, we are unlikely to have to worry about this from a handful of hantavirus patients on a cruise ship.

But if that 38% for a future pandemic ever hits home, I’m not sure those of us who lived through COVID-19 will be any more help than the “forgotten” survivors of 1918-19 would have been for us.