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.
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.