Interestingly, whereas SFTSV does not cause lethal infection in wild-type mice and hamsters, STAT2 knockout mice and hamsters become susceptible to SFTSV infection; this is likely explained by the fact that SFTSV NSs cannot prevent phosphorylation of mouse or hamster STAT2 due to its lack of ability to bind STAT2 from those species [110]. Here, STAT2 is linked to infection.