Humbly, admittedly cynically, I submit that what really caused the outbreak was the desire to go out into a wild and beutiful setting, while giving up as few gluttonous comforts as possible.

You can't cram people together without proper waste removal. Ask Paris about that.

Rip up the cabins, canvass cottages, and the roads: People will stop getting sick... Well, the dumb ones may get giardia.

The first person to die of Hantavirus in California was a woman who stayed in one of the cabins at the Valentine Reserve, a University of California research area on the periphery of Mammoth Lakes. After the incident, the university completely gutted the cabin, replacing the shag carpet with lineoleum, among other things. I was the first person to stay in the cabin after this remodeling (in 1997). It was nevertheless a terrific place, with a two foot diameter lodegpole pine growing right up through the floor and the ceiling in the main living area and bats swooping past me in the night. But I still think of the unfortunate woman who preceded me.

Incidentally, I believe but will never know for sure, that I caught Hantavirus in a cabin in the mountains of Colorado at another research station which had mouse dropping all over. The symptoms were clearly beyond what I had ever experienced--I could barely breathe at times---and really should have driven to the hospital in Boulder but did not, and eventually, but very slowly recovered from it.