Scary things: Hantavirus

I learned about the hantavirus earlier this year in a class I took on epidemics. It’s deadly and transmitted by rodents in Northern New Mexico. The CDC website says this about its discovery in the early 1990s:

“an outbreak of an unexplained pulmonary illness occurred in the southwestern United States, in an area shared by Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah known as "The Four Corners." A young, physically fit Navajo man suffering from shortness of breath was rushed to a hospital in New Mexico and died very rapidly.”

So kitties are especially good things out here. We got this one (see her hiding in my bookcase?) and another at the Humane Society this week.