DR MARC SIEGEL: Hantavirus cruise outbreak is alarming, but fear is spreading faster than facts

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG. Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel explains the rodent-borne virus as officials race to track those exposed on the MV Hondius cruise ship on 'America Reports.' Fear is generally far more virulent than the virus that causes it. This is the case with the current hantavirus outbreak unless something about the virus itself has changed, which is very unlikely. As far as we know, the only thing that this hantavirus has in common with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that sparked the COVID pandemic is that both are single-stranded RNA viruses and both sparked outbreaks on cruise ships. Of course, the current hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius is sparking memories of the Diamond Princess, which departed from Japan in late January 2020 for a cruise of the Western Pacific. The cruise ended up being quarantined off Japan for two weeks, after 712 of the 3,71