The link is not 100% but two hunters eating from the same deer population and falling ill at around the same time is extremely unlikely to be a coincidence.
We are essentially one mutation away from this spreading between humans and that would be very, very bad.
It’s everywhere by now, isn’t it? When the containment of a new disease is precarious like this, I usually assume the worst has already happened. The people in charge just aren’t aware of it yet. If they are, they still don’t want to tell the public out of fear of how destabilizing such news could be to the whole system.
The maps of affected wild herds only shows a few states, but I’ve seen deer here in NJ as far back as a decade ago that very much looked like they were sick with CWD. I wouldn’t doubt that it’s more widespread than we are aware of.
With so many possibilities of deer and cattle coming into contact in rural settings, I especially worry about my relatives that have cattle and occasionally hunt. I guess my mother had a point about never wanting to try any venison that they cooked.