Another pandemic is not some far-fetched hypothetical for Michigan’s next governor.
This week, American passengers who were on the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise ship, aboard which a rare strain of so-called hantavirus broke out, were placed in quarantine in a medical facility in Nebraska for 42 days. One person has tested positive without symptoms, and another person had mild symptoms.
The federal government has argued there is no reason to be concerned. But the next COVID could be at our doorstep even before Gov. Gretchen Whitmer leaves office.
Three people from that ship have already died from the suspected virus. Much about its origins and potential transmission remains unknown.
If nothing else, hantavirus is already a sobering reminder of how Americans’ lives can, and did, change on a dime.
That reality — more than tax plans or campaign slogans — made one exchange during Oakland County’s April 30 Republican gubernatorial debate especially important.
Asked how they would handle the next pandemic, candidate Ralph Rebandt answered: “Remember constitutional rights first and foremost.”
After what Michigan endured during COVID-19, that response hit a critical point.
Because whatever one believes about the virus itself, the public trust catastrophe surrounding the government response has not healed. And pretending otherwise is dangerous.
Is the state medically prepared for another threat similar to COVID? Did we learn enough — about preserving civil liberties, closing churches and schools, marginalizing dissenting medical opinions or social media debate?
The next pandemic may not look like COVID. In fact, it probably won’t.
Public health experts have long warned that zoonotic diseases — illnesses that jump from animals to humans — are increasing in frequency. Hantavirus, which is carried primarily by rodents and can cause severe respiratory illness, has a fatality rate of roughly 35% in confirmed U.S. cases, according to the CDC.
That does not mean hantavirus is about to become the next COVID.
But highly contagious or highly lethal infectious diseases will continue to emerge. COVID proved how quickly modern society can grind to a halt when fear, uncertainty and government power collide.
And Michigan was one of the clearest examples in the nation of what happens when emergency authority expands faster than accountability.
Businesses were shuttered. Children lost years of normal schooling and social development. Nursing home policies made seniors more exposed. Executive orders shifted constantly. People were told to trust “the science,” only to later discover that much of the guidance changed repeatedly — on masks, school closures, transmission and vaccines.
The COVID vaccines likely saved lives, particularly among vulnerable populations during the worst stages of the pandemic.
But Americans were also told things with far more certainty than the evidence ultimately justified. Officials overstated what vaccines would prevent. Questions that were once dismissed as misinformation later became acceptable public debate. Trust in institutions collapsed.
And Anthony Fauci — once treated as the unquestionable face of “science” — became a symbol of all the government can get wrong.
Our exit from COVID was messy and the collateral damage from it was left largely unexamined.
Americans may be too easily inclined to slip back into the norms of the COVID years. Or on the opposite side, there is the danger that public distrust has now become so profound that legitimate warnings will be avoided altogether.
The next governor of Michigan may very well confront another pandemic-scale event.
Underneath the myriad challenges that could present, the most fundamental one may be whether the public will believe anything that person says and follow what he or she tries to direct.
kbuss@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: With hantavirus at hand, are we ready for the next pandemic? | Buss
Reporting by Kaitlyn Buss, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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