Hey there, folks. It is Thursday, May seventh, and we have gotten a significant update about that hantavirus cruise ship. Remember we were under the impression that the threat was just to the people on that ship. Well, the information we're getting now is that up to forty people got off that ship and went back to those home countries of theirs up to a dozen countries and yep, one of them is the United States of America. And with that,
welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes different story this morning.
This is huge. This is a massive update that we are just now learning about on Thursday, and it's been a little interesting because the numbers have even changed for the first time. Yeah, we're learning forty passengers left that hantavirus cruise ship on the island of Saint Helena nearly two weeks after the first patient died.
Say that one more time for the people in the back. Yes, Robes, forty is significant.
Passengers went back to at least twelve countries two weeks after that seventy year old man died of hauntavirus on the cruise ship. Among those passengers was his wife, So that was the only person we heard about and we only heard about that yesterday that she actually flew on a commercial plane from Saint Helena to Johannesburg. She gets off the plane, she collapses in the airport and dies later at the hospital. She was among the group of people who disembarked.
All right, so we need to robe. So you're what you're saying here now, and what we are reporting this is we don't want this to get into a sketchy area of we are doubting the information we've been given. But Robes, there have been a complete one eighties in information that's been given, and this information is critical to public health right now. Now it's possible, I want to give them all right, the possibility that information is coming in and they are just learning and they're getting updates.
But robes to be told, we had no idea first that, Oh it was a shock. Wait a minute, this woman got on a commercial plane. Wait a minute, she was on a commercial plane with other people from the same infected ship. Okay, and wait a minute, she's not the only one of people went all over the place. Robes, folks are all over the world now and a race is on to track them down and to get them away. From the general public.
That is not an understatement. And here's the deal. Like this, I know we don't want to doubt, we want to be able to believe the information coming off the ship. But how about this for confusing Today today the company that runs this ship said about twenty nine people got off, and then just a short time later, Dutch officials came out and said, no, it was more like forty people got off. And we mentioned the twelve different countries that these folks traveled to. They said two of the people
they're not sure where they're from. How I don't know how they don't know their nationalities. But that was actually also said today.
A lot the update we have gotten in the past twelve hours, I guess ropes. They have all been terrifying. I want to and we should ropes with this in some kind of context. Here they're telling us the risk to the general public is low, Are they not? They are okay, because I'm not sure why, because we're dealing with a strain that is passed from human to human and an incubation period that could go up to two months. But nothing to worry about, nothing to see here.
No, they're claiming that you either need to have close intimate contact, as in you share a room or a bed with someone, or you share food with someone. They're claiming it has to be it doesn't spread the same
way a lot of viruses spread. But you know, we learned a lot about viruses going through the coronavirus and the pandemic, and we learned that viruses mutate, and epidemiologists know this, so that I would think would be of a concern because this is a rare, little studied, known strain of the virus, the and the strain of the haunt of virus. How many epidemiologists and scientists are well versed in this very rare specific strain that was contained to one corner of the world, in like this remote
area of Argentina. And now all these people have gone back to their home countries. And this speaks to our confusion. Yesterday when all of a sudden, right before we came on our podcast, we learned a Swiss man was in a Swiss hospital with a confirmed case of haunt of virus. And that is when questions first started being raised, how did he get to Switzerland.
Because we had not heard about anybody getting off that boat except in particular this couple. That's all we knew at the time, So wrote that came a shock. Now you said, people started questioning and sorry, rah Samina is facetiming me as we're talking here, all right, So yes, I still have not like us as my ring tone. But Rose, that was the first And you said people started questioning. No, we started. We were in mid podcast. Wait wait a minute, wis.
How do he can't get to Switzerland off a boat in Antarctica? It was so confusing. So yes, he was among those forty passengers who basically left. And at the time they knew a man died on board, but they didn't know what he died of. They didn't know how he died, and they certainly didn't know he had a deadly, potentially contagious virus when they all disembarked. And so he gets off and according to Swiss authorities, he was feeling
ill ill, yes, but he didn't suspect anything. He gets an email from the cruise ship saying you might have been exposed. If you feel ill, you should go to the hospital, and that is when he went to the hospital.
So he got an email. But now you have to wonder how many of those forty are checking their email. How many of those forty might be feeling a little ill. How many of those forty are still going to work? How many of those forty is still putting their kids to bed? How many of those for right, you go on and on and on, like this broke this. Well, we're trying to keep this in context and not be
too alarmist and too scary. But this is robes. You remember hearing about a little virus in Wuhan and like, oh, that's way away from us. Next thing, you know, we can't leave the house. This is scary stuff with a virus we don't know a lot about that, we don't deal with a lot here and a strain that is essentially the holy shit strain of this virus.
Yes, because it passes from human to human and it has a forty percent fatality rate. And when you look and see the numbers right now, we now know confirmed eight cases of haunted virus on that cruise ship and three of those passengers are Three of those folks who contracted the virus are dead. That is in line with that four forty percent fatality rate.
Help me with the breakdown. I know the numbers are changing. Eight total that we're talking about three dead. Three were sick on the ship had to be evacuated. Were the other two?
The other two one of them is in Switzerland in a hospital and one of them is in South Africa in a hospital.
There is so a British.
National in South Africa and a Swiss national in Switzerland.
Okay, there it is. And the reminder here robes this cannot There is no cure if you will, there isn't even a specific treatment. It's a matter of essentially making somebody uncomfortable as comfortable as you can give them, giving them fluid. There's not much you can do is hope and wait they are strong enough to survive and invite this thing off.
That's truly where we are on this virus. Yes, and I know that ventilators are used as a last ditch effort to try and and help someone get through the virus on their own. But literally, your body has to fight it. They can try to make you, yes, more comfortable, keep you hydrated, and try to keep the fluid out of your lungs, and that is what doctors try to do when you contract this disease. But here's the pointed out there is an up to eight week incubation period
for this. So this is tough. If you think about the fact that the first passenger died on April eleventh, then on April twenty fourth, you got forty passengers leaving, one of whom collapses hours later in an airport and dies shortly thereafter.
Rose. I still don't have a good handle, and I'm sorry if I'm putting you on the spot. We don't know yet. When are you contagious? Right? If you contract it, you don't actually start showing symptoms for a little while. When do you actually get contagious? Because the timeline you talk about is scary as hell. They believe this couple originally got it when they first took off from Argentina, right, so they got it. It's April first, So they get on the ship April first, he gets sick April six,
He dies on April eleventh. They get off on April twenty fourth, but rose from April first until the twenty fourth. Yes, he died, but his wife is still on bar. They don't know what's going on. Didn't seem sick. They let people know on the ship. There's video of this. The guy you got off. Now the captain tells everybody, we've had a passenger die. But after that, everybody was still mingling on the ship as if nothing was a threat.
Look, he was a seventy year old man.
Look that's not that old.
But it wouldn't be that shocking that he could have had a heart attack. He could have had you know, a lot of underlying conditions. So no one really thought anything of it, including his own wife, who obviously felt well enough, who was allowed and wasn't. There was no concern, there was no red flag rais, no eyebrows raised that maybe she could be also somehow sick as well. So
she was allowed to get off the ship. She was allowed to get on a plane to follow her husband back home, but she never made it.
Ro How sick would she have had to have been that in one flight she passes out ropes at the end of the flight. That had to be at her sickest.
When you argue, and she's on a commercial airline, enclosed airspace with all those folks, and look, if it took her, let's just say, if it took her two weeks basically to exhibit signs. Anyone who's been on that plane, you know we're right around that mark, I guess four twenty four and trying to do the math. But yeah, that's still some scary stuff.
Because it could be two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, they.
Tell us it could be a while, and we don't know this Swiss passenger who now has tested positive, who's now in the hospital. Look, they don't really know.
I've read.
They're now trying to figure out how he got back home, the flights he took to get back. Every one of these people now to go back and try to find who they got into contact with and who they were enclosed shared airspace with. Because look, if you're exhibiting symptoms, I don't know how this virus spreads, but most virus
spreads through fluids, through bodily fluids. So if you're coughing, if you're sneezing, if you're you know, any saliva gets anywhere, that would be the mode of transmission you would assume. So yet in a closed space, that ain't so great.
But rome's we talk about the closed space. They believe it started with these two like the elderly couple, another six some kind hand away got sick. How did these two end up in close contact. Like you said, you have to spread. It's not like the flu, right, you can't just well excuse me, it's not just so aerosolized that you just a sneeze will do it, right.
They they claim that it has to be close contact, close contact.
Well, six other people some kind of way got in close contact with these two. I know, did those other six be in close contact with somebody else? And then though it just goes on. We don't know.
Yeah, we don't know if the Swiss national who's now in the hospital, if he was on that same plane with the wife. We don't know if the British national who's now in Johannesburg in a hospital, if he was on that same plane. We don't have a lot of information. And I think that's what's so concerning right now. So when we come back, we're going to talk about because we have a whole other issue. This ship is now
making its way toward towards the Canary Islands. The Canary Island folks don't want them to dock, and there is a political battle brewing within Spain as to what to do with these folks. And even if they're allowed to get off on the Canary Islands. What do they do with all these folks who have lots of countries to
head back home to. We'll explain what the plan is when we come back and welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ, where there are just some major developments with this Haunt of Virus cruise ship scare because now we have dozens of people scattered all around the world who have possibly been exposed to hauntavirus, and now local authorities in at least twelve different countries, including the United States, are scrambling to try and contact trace
these individuals who they've come into contact with, isolate them and monitor them. And that's where we are while this ship is still on the move. It left Cape ver day, or at least the waters off of Cape Verde, the
western tip of Africa, Wednesday afternoon. They are heading north towards the Canary Islands over local objections because the Canary Island leaders say we don't want them here, and the Spanish health minister said they're going to go regardless, and he actually said we're not going to get into the
political controversy. I believe it's not the time, but still this is going to come to a point where they're going to have to figure out what to do in three days or so when this ship is there at the Canary Islands, they're set right now to begin evacuations of the passengers who are still on board as early as Monday.
Wait a minute, so at the Canary Islands. Yes, okay, but right now Spain is saying sure you can knock there. The Canary Islands leaders are saying, ah, exactly right, So who has I soon? The Spanish leaders are the ones who have say.
They do have say over the ports, they do have say over what they can basically go above the heads of local leaders. But still, if you have the local community, the local government there vehemently opposing you docking, it's just a little concerning what may actually happen. So there's a meeting apparently that's going on today to discuss the evacuation process and how you get these people who are going to have to be quarantined ultimately to their third countries,
basically anywhere other than Spain or the Netherlands. And look, we know what Spaniards plan to do. There are fourteen Spanish passengers aboard that board right now. They're saying they're going to put them in a military hospital in Madrid, quarantined, isolated for a forty five day incubation period. That's the plan for the Spanish passengers. But what do we do with the other passengers who are from all these other countries? Are they just isn't going to become treat a country
to decide what to do. But we've got Americans who have returned home and have been home for a while because they were among those forty who left the ship two weeks after that dutch Man died. We have them in Georgia, California, and Arizona. That's what we know right now.
Okay, and now you told me earlier. A lot of these folks are going back to their home countries. A lot of them are being monitored. They know where they are where. There are some right now who are still out there saying in the wind, if you will, that might not know, they need to be concerned. And well, at this point, everybody, I think they probably know now.
But the thing is, do you want to tell anyone like, hmmm, do I really think about this though? If you're like, I feel fine, this is ridiculous. They say the risk is low. You're now just hoping that the people who were on board will voluntarily isolate for forty five days.
Yes, this is not COVID, now, excuse me, it's not. It is similar to COVID in that we don't know a whole lot about it, right, A lot of us are getting caught up. It's not a brand new thing like COVID was. But what was the death rate for COVID?
Yeah, this is forty percent.
Okay, this is not something to mess around with. Oh, I'll just go to work because I feel fine. This is a responsibility. You could get somebody killed. Yes, let's hope.
So we know two residents in the state of Georgia who were on that ship are in good health and showing no signs of infection, according to Georgia authorities. In Arizona, they say they are monitoring one resident who was, yes, a passenger on board the ship and is not symptomatic. In California, it's a little unclear. We got the word that this is how they phrased it. The Department of Public Health has been notified by the CDC that California residents plural have been on the ship, but we have
no info that they are ill or infected. That didn't seem like a good enough statement. Again, all of this is just coming to light, so there is some scrambling going on, but it felt really generic. The California statement, what rose?
How long did they tell us we had to quarantine to be safe with COVID? It was fourteen days? Fourteen days to be in the clear. Yes, are the numbers all over the place. How long do you need to be in the clear for this?
Yes, it was so obviously Spain says they're going with forty five days. We've heard some folks say it's eight weeks, so sixty days it's but I haven't heard anything less than forty five days.
To think, a lot of us and a lot of people listening now had at some point did a quarantine with code. Oh yes, I had to. I had a couple of Okay, now, think about doing that for a month and a half or two months.
That's my point. People are unwilling to check out or opt out of life or contact with anyone for that long. So you're asking all of these people to self isolate and granted, obviously, once your local municipality knows that you were on that show, they're going to monitor you for obvious reasons. But this is scary as hell, and I guess it just feels like it feels like we kind of got hit with this. And why wouldn't we have known sooner? Why would the ship not have put out
this alert sooner? And granted they were clearly sending emails to people, but they weren't letting the rest of us know that this was actually or this had happened, that this many passengers had gotten off the boat.
And again want to leave room there for maybe they were getting caught up, maybe they were understanding, maybe they were finding out what was going on. But Robes, this at least this company was aware as early as August sixth, maybe, but definitely excuse me, April right April, yes, April eleventh, when he died. This became for the company a big deal. It was reported they were aware of it. And again Robes, did they for two weeks just not think there was
anything to worry about it? That's possible. So when those folks got off on April twenty fourth, Robes, everybody's looking like there's nothing to worry about. We have okay, Yes, life is normal. They never thought about this dead guy again once they got off the ship, right and not.
Probably oh, they just probably thought he died of natural causes.
Then people start getting sick, and I guess you look into it more. But man robes, they keep telling us the risk is low. I don't want us to be that thing where we're soundings. I'm alarmed, but it's just this is terrifying to a certain degree of virus that we're not familiar with, that kills forty percent of the people that infects, and it's moving from human to human, and we don't know where many of the humans are who were on that ship. Damn ropes.
I don't think it's alarmist at all to be concerned. I don't think it's alarmist at all to be vigilant. And this is a case in which you want people, or at least you hope that your health officials would, out of an abundance of caution, do everything they can to make sure that no other person dies this virus.
Period. Again, they keep telling us it's hard for it to move from human to human. It's difficult, it takes prolonged contact. Even they say, I hear that, I hear what you're saying, but there are eight people. Now you're telling me who got sick. That's a lot of human and human contact ropes on a ship. I guess it's close proximity on a ship.
Yes, how could it not be. I've been on plenty of cruise ships.
And so is a plane. Yes, yes, And they say nothing to worry Else wants to say nothing to worry about.
But bros, you even think about what about the uber driver who maybe picked up the passenger from the airport? Oh god, you know, you just think about all the people that you come in contact with, and so this is deeply, deeply concerning. We're going to obviously keep our eye on this developing story because there is so much more to come, especially when that cruise ship reaches the Canary Islands, so we will be on top of it all.
But in the meantime, we appreciate you listening to us.
As always, I'm Amy Robock alongside TJ. Holmes.
Will talk to you soon.