# What Next - Should I Be Freaking Out About Hantavirus? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/slate-news-494234/what-next-should-i-be-freaking-out-about-hantavirus Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/slate-news-494234/what-next-should-i-be-freaking-out-about-hantavirus.md Podcast: [Slate News](https://stenobird.com/podcast/slate-news-494234) Published: 2026-05-12T07:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/whatnext-daily-news-and-analysis/episodes/6a022ec192e9663a6f9f7aaf Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6961268923ce58f14615840d/a/slatenews-podcasts/e/6a022ec192e9663a6f9f7aaf/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/slate-news-494234/episodes/what-next-should-i-be-freaking-out-about-hantavirus Duration seconds: 1411 ## Resource The world is watching with a wary eye, as passengers leave the hantavirus-infected MV Hondius cruise ship and head to medical facilities or home. Is this the start of the next pandemic—or is our collective response still informed by the last one? Guest:  Katherine J. Wu is a staff writer covering science at The Atlantic . Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/slate-news-494234/episodes/what-next-should-i-be-freaking-out-about-hantavirus/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/slate-news-494234/what-next-should-i-be-freaking-out-about-hantavirus.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.