The Backstory: Hantavirus: Do I Have It?
Elvis Duran and the Morning Show ON DEMAND
Elvis Duran Podcast Network and iHeartPodcasts
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do You Get Stressed Over News Stories About a Bunch of People Getting Sick With a Disease You’ve Never Even Heard Of? Lately, It’s the Hantavirus. But Here’s the Thing. These Outbreaks Have Been Around for Thousands of Years. Problem Is, You Can’t Ignore What’s Happening, but the Anxiety Can Really Gnaw at You. So It’s Better to Know the Origin Story, Because Like They Say… Knowledge Is Power.
Feel Free to DM Me if You Have a Story You’d Like Me to Cover… on Facebook It’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, let's be honest. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the news, especially when it's about a bunch of people getting sick with the disease you've never even heard of? Now it's all about the hantavirus. But these random outbreaks of all kinds of ailments have been around for not just hundreds, but thousands of years. Now, the problem is, you can't ignore it for fear you're going to put |
| 0:22.1 | yourself in harm's way, but if you're worried too much, the stress will gnaw at you. It's better |
| 0:28.4 | to know its origin story, right? I'm Patty Steele, like they say, knowledge is power. That's next |
| 0:34.6 | on the backstory. This is an I-Heart podcast. Gary That's next on The Backstory. |
| 0:40.3 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:42.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:45.8 | The backstory is back. |
| 0:51.7 | Are you, like a lot of folks, the type who hears about the latest outbreak on the news, |
| 0:55.4 | and then becomes obsessed with the thought that you might have it, |
| 1:02.9 | or may have been exposed to it somehow? Close to 70% of us worry about our health, and up to 12% of folks have full-blown health anxiety disorder, also known as hypochondria. Then there's |
| 1:09.7 | cyberchondria, believe it or not, where you literally |
| 1:12.7 | doom scroll looking for symptoms and illnesses you think you could possibly have. So lately, |
| 1:20.0 | we've been hearing a lot about the hantavirus. The what? Hantavirus. And it turns out |
| 1:26.4 | this is something that's been around for probably at least |
| 1:29.1 | 3,000 years. The earliest reports were from China, but there have also been outbreaks in Korea, |
| 1:35.6 | as well as in the U.S. during the Civil War and in parts of Europe during World War I. It does seem |
| 1:41.6 | scary, but funny enough, almost all types of it aren't contagious |
| 1:45.2 | between humans. It's just our interaction with rodents and their droppings. So what's all the |
| 1:51.7 | fuss? Well, because it seems when humans do get it, it seems to target healthy young people |
| 1:57.2 | under the age of 40. And if they get it, as many as 30% of those cases will be fatal. |
| 2:03.4 | So this isn't an illness like the plague, which wiped out up to 50% of Europe's population |
| 2:09.1 | in the 1300s and hit North and South America 100 years later, killing as many as 56 million |
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