US and French nationals test positive for hantavirus after leaving ship

I shouldn't laugh at this but I did.

What's the reference here?

I know, I've been alive only for 28 of them

The last 5 years have been the longest 10 years of my life

I’m 43. I wanna go back to SNICK

Imagine 1929-1949

Last 25. It all went downhill after 9/11

All went downhill since Harambe.

To my understanding it has an 8-week incubation time so all the people who caught it on the cruise ships had no clue they had it until way later.

There should be criminal charges for people who fumble this hard and let this shit spread unnecessarily. Reckless endangerment or something. This is ridiculous

Don't know about these folks. But at least in Spain all passengers have been taken to a military hospital to be quarantine for weeks. If these Americans and Frenchmen are not in the same situation as them, then this is a failure of their respective governments by not going through the proper procedure. Not of the ship evacuation itself.

Dude 💯 even out of caution, just keep them on 🫩 it's like we're asking for it

yuuup, they should've just quarantined the ship and not let anyone off unless they needed to go to be helicoptered to a hospital

Before they die they have a sudden urge to visit Greenland and Madagascar, and every major airport in the way.

They were already traveling the world, that's what started this. And they're rich, nobody's going to tell them what to do.

learn? sounds woke

Is it precendented if we just had another outbreak 6 years ago? Asking as another millennial 

Gen Z. I don’t even know what precedented times are. I wasn’t conscious enough for the 1990s

I mean, we've already had a worldwide pandemic. That makes a second one pretty precedented no?

"What am I supposed to do?!?! Cancel my vacation that I'm not even able to enjoy because I'm sick with a potentially lethal disease?? Wash my hands semi-regularly and stay home for a trivial amount of time instead of making a week full of plans that include licking or coughing on literally everything I see in public at any possible opportunity?! That's SO inconvenient for ME! Stop being selfish!"

That's why I'm taking any attempts by authorities/experts to assuage concerns with a grain of salt. Yes, this might all be overblown, but I'm not taking their word as gospel. I'm keeping an eye out and my guard up just in case shit changes. Got to be ready if things hit the fan.

There was a spreader event at a birthday party in 2018 that appears to show this strain is easier to transmit. https://english.elpais.com/health/2026-05-07/andes-hantavirus-deadly-2018-outbreak-shows-it-is-not-only-transmitted-through-close-contact.html

Didn’t that 2018 outbreak in Argentina start from one infected person with a fever going to a birthday party for 90 minutes and infecting 5 people, 4 of whom were sitting within about two metres

Idk where this claim that you need to be super close comes from, I keep seeing it repeated in English discussions but both French and German media have consistently reported on the fact that several of the infected were nowhere near as close as that. Some were sat at a neighboring table (which is already like 2 meters distance, but at least it was the same room for 90 minutes) while another merely *passed the infected in the hallway*, so mere seconds of non-close contact. The only "good" things we know about this strain of the virus so far is that the infectious period is very short, and that people tend to get seriously sick, making them less likely to wander around and spread it.

You never know. So far, everyone has been from the cruise ship. There were reports of the first victim's wife hugging a bunch of people after the death of her husband. There were also possible rat infestations on the ship, which would indicate no human to human spread.

Since they were all on the same cruise, maybe a situation where one of the sick people contaminated a buffet?

Planes are family-level close, never been on a floating hotel but I imagine there are moments for similar proximity. Hey guys, remember the beginning of Covid when they told us stuff that ended up not being true bc they didn’t want us to panic? Like how masks weren’t necessary or helpful? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Clearly this is another job for ivermectin

Samoa would like to have a word.

There was a plot point in the second episode of Horatio Hornblower where he and his envoy party had to self-quarantine in a ship because they suspected to have come across the plague.

People won't respect the history lesson from the Spanish flu. I think it's still pretty much a simple FAFO type process.

I'm never flying again without a mask. No more getting stick on holiday. Health benefits aside, It's so much nicer because it helps trap some moisture and I feel so much better after a long flight than I used to.

covid’s mortality rate was 2% at worst. hanta is 40%. that’s nearly a coin flip for survival. if this goes exponential i’d start wearing a p100 not just a n95

There is never a reason not to mask in flights when you can (or in hospitals, or in any crowded place really) so yeah

I’m concerned with the US national who tested positive while we have a government who doesn’t believe in public health and hates the WHO

I think the concern people have is that we have already seen, previously, evidence that this exact administration that exists right now is completely incompetent at best when it comes to understanding infectious disease, and more likely actively malicious. One of the largest centers for travel has shown it cares more about money than any amount of human lives while previous administrations could easily stop the spread of something with such difficulty in multiplying and would actively help the WHO, the current one will belligerently attack any measure because they must oppose anyone that seems like they might take control of a situation.

Something that I do think is important to note is that even though Ebola wasn’t serious in the US, it was extremely serious and deadly in other places. Also, one of the reasons it was well-handled in the US is because Obama, well, handled it. I believe he even had a pandemic playbook created based on it (or before it? Can’t remember) which was promptly thrown out during trump’s first term. Even if you are correct in your assumptions about this virus, there’s really no reason for the American people to believe this will be well-handled and won’t put anyone at risk. Last time we believed that, it didn’t turn out well at all.

You rebelled against the Commonwealth, you lose the BBC, b****. /s As a side note, no paywall in Canada

Your president is suing them for $10bn over them reporting two things he said in the same speech, as though he said them in the same speech. They're fundraising.

Everyone else paying helps subsidise it and keep it free for us in the UK (it's not just the tv license that makes them money).

BBC didn't pay US tariffs so you gotta pay /s

How's that mental? There've been multiple US news networks that blocked EU users because of GDPR requirements they didn't want to meet. Europe and the US are moving further and further apart sadly.

It was confirmed that many passengers were consoling the wife of the first patient who passed away with hugs, etc. even if they didn’t know each other. This is probably the biggest spreader event.

Just a mild sex cruise

>U.S. nationals were Sunday's last evacuation group. The CDC said it was sending a team of epidemiologists and medical professionals to the Canary Islands to "conduct an exposure risk assessment for each American passenger and provide recommendations for the level of monitoring required." >After being removed from the Hondius, 18 people — 17 Americans and one British person who lives in the U.S., according to France's prime minister — were flown back to the U.S. in a plane that was sent by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and HHS. The passengers were to be taken to a special biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. There are enough things to criticize the US over that you don't need to make things up.

For Trump, this is just another potential avenue for unrest.

> The folks who have disembarked are not being required to quarantine. Thats not correct. They are being quarantined. >The passengers will be transported to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine in that city, the country’s only federally funded quarantine center, health officials previously said. At the center, the passengers will be observed around the clock by a volunteer team of doctors and nurses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. > >Two of the passengers on the flight traveled in specialized biocontainment units out of an abundance of caution. One passenger had mild symptoms, and the other was the passenger who had tested “mildly” positive for the Andes virus, the department said. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/us/americans-hantavirus-ship-return-nebraska.html

Yes. Here is our director of the CDC: “Depending on the estimated risk, passengers can choose to go home "without exposing other people on the way", said Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” So hold your breath when you’re in public!! A kiss for luck and we’re on our way! The dude from the Great Barrington Declaration. This is so reassuring.

Just in time for the World Cup as well

Tests aren’t magic. You have to have a decent viral load built up for it to bind to the antibodies on the test. Testing asymptomatic people before they leave the ship is a good idea, but it’s not enough to stop transmission. People need to isolate and be tested regularly.

That's not how it works. The test isn't accurate or reliable if the person isn't showing symptoms: > When asked whether the six Canadians who have returned home have been tested for hantavirus, Reimer said they haven't. > The reason for that, she said, is because **"there is no validated test for asymptomatic individuals."** > **"That means if we were to do a test on them, my biggest worry is if it came back negative, that could falsely reassure them that they're not infected when in fact we wouldn't be confident of that."** > That might cause them to take less precautions than necessary, she added. **There's also a chance that they get a false positive on the test, which could create unnecessary worry.** https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/livestory/hantavirus-questions-answered-9.7192423

It can take up to 8 weeks for symptoms to appear if you have it. So it could take up to 8 weeks to test positive