American passenger on hantavirus-hit cruise feels 'blindsided,' 'misled' by new quarantine orders - KSL.com

OMAHA, Nebraska — An American passenger who was exposed to the Andes strain of hantavirus on the cruise ship HV Hondius said he feels "blindsided" and "misled" by new orders requiring him to stay at the National Quarantine Center in Nebraska under federal supervision.At least two passengers were formally ordered to stay in quarantine in Nebraska after they pushed to leave. The others were told that if they did not voluntarily stay, they would also be ordered to remain. The order, reviewed by CNN, was signed by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who leads both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.Public health officials have repeatedly stressed that the risk to the public from the Andes hantavirus is low. But the outbreak has tested the Trump administration's fidelity to the principles of the medical freedom movement, which has been championed by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his deputies. The medical freedom movement resists government-imposed public health measures such as vaccine mandates and masking requirements.Bhattacharya is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which was written in protest of "damaging physical and mental health impacts" of the government's lockdown policies during the Covid-19 pandemic."This is another way to sow mistrust in public health," wrote Dr. Ali S. Khan, dean of the school of public health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, on social media. "Inconsistent with numerous hantavirus cruise ship passengers in the US who are home monitored without a mandatory order."Passengers who disembarked from the Hondius in April and flew back to the U.S. before the outbreak was identified and the risk was known are being monitored in their homes by state and local public health departments.In news briefings last week, CDC officials said they were assessing passengers and were working with state and local health departments to allow them to quarantine at home. The CDC issued guidelines to assist those health departments in monitoring people who were exposed to the virus, including twice-daily in-person visits.Until Sunday night, some passengers expected to be allowed to return home as early as this week to complete the remaining 42 days of quarantine. Several had already been in touch with their state and local health departments, which would have been responsible for monitoring them.One p