Ebola and hantavirus aren’t new. But the American reaction to them is — and public health experts say COVID-19 is the reason.
NPR reported Wednesday, May 21, that some Americans appear extra-alarmed about both viruses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which reshaped how millions of people think about infectious disease. The heightened anxiety doesn’t match the actual risk, according to public health experts interviewed by the outlet. They don’t expect either virus to trigger another pandemic.
The COVID effect
COVID changed the math on public fear. Before 2020, most Americans hadn’t lived through a large-scale infectious disease crisis. Now they have. That experience left a residue — a faster, sharper spike in worry whenever a new pathogen grabs headlines.
Hantavirus and Ebola operate very differently from SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. Neither spreads easily through casual contact the way COVID did. Hantavirus typically passes to humans through contact with rodent droppings, urine, or saliva; it isn’t known to spread person-to-person in the United States. Ebola transmits through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person, making large outbreaks harder to sustain in countries with strong infection-control systems.
Public health experts told NPR they understand why people are nervous. Years of pandemic disruption — school closures, masking debates, vaccine controversies — conditioned the public to treat any outbreak news as a potential repeat of 2020. That instinct isn’t irrational. It’s just, in this case, out of proportion to the threat.
Still, experts cautioned against dismissing the concern entirely. Vigilance can be useful if it pushes people to follow basic precautions and trust public health guidance. The trouble starts when alarm tips into panic or, worse, into distrust of the agencies tracking these diseases.
Neither NPR’s report nor the experts it cited offered a timeline for when the current Ebola and hantavirus cases might be fully contained. How long the heightened public anxiety lasts is another open question — one that probably won’t have a clean answer.
NPR reported this story on May 21, 2026. Read the original report.
