CDC officials say there is no need to panic about the hantavirus as the biggest threat right now is the coronavirus.
People began to worry after reports went viral of a man who died in China on Monday and tested positive for the hantavirus.
But that virus is spread through close contact with rodent droppings, urine, or saliva, according to the CDC, and does not pose a major threat like the coronavirus.
“The hantaviruses that cause human illness in the United States cannot be transmitted from one person to another,” the CDC website states.
While certain types of rats and mice in the U.S. carry the virus, there have only been 728 confirmed hantavirus cases in the country from 1993 to 2017.
