Hey, that folks. It is Monday, May eleventh, and they are here. Seventeen Americans who were aboard that stricken hantavirus cruise ship just landed back in the United States, and two of them got sick on the flight home. With that, Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes. Let's start with that. Seventeen Americans came back on a flight essentially chartered by the United States and on the way back to got sick. And one of them, we know Robes at this point, has the virus.
Yes, and I believe they were evaluated as displaying symptoms before they got on board that flight. So those two actually were transported in the planes bio containment units and one of them, yes, tested positive. The other one they suspect is positive is displaying symptoms. So while everyone this is a special plane that the United States brought these seventeen passengers back into this facility that they'll be at
for a while in Nebraska. But yes, those two passengers, and by the way, before any of these flights came to repatriot all of these citizens aboard this plane, the cruise ship was saying up until the very last moment, no one is displaying symptoms.
And yet here we are.
Here, we are with the Americans, and we also have a situation with the French.
Okay, so let's get you all caught up. You've been watching the news over the weekend. Hantavirus ship was able to make it to the Canary Islands and everybody was able to get off. They did them in small groups. They did it very carefully. But Robes, there were citizens from how many countries again, twenty twenty three, so they had to get everybody off, just small groups at a time. They essentially handed them back over to their own countries and they have to follow their own protocols. So that's
what happened. So now this plane of Americans took off, it just landed. We watched it happen live here about two three in the morning, and they're in Nebraska. But ro So that's the latest, and we'll talk more about the Americans. But what are our numbers now, I know you were struggling to try to piece it together. I was struggling to piece it together. But the official numbers, now, well, this ship.
Honestly, because news agencies and a lot of folks are sleeping, they haven't come up with a consensus. But I did the math and I believe we now have twelve confirmed slash suspected cases of hantavirus, and I can go over what those are. Obviously, we had the three debts and we had the five suspected cases, so.
We had eight for a very long time.
Now there is a situation in Spain which would be the ninth confirmed case. She is a thirty two year old woman who shared the plane with a positive cruise ship passenger now is showing symptoms and they believe she may have the haunt of virus.
So that's number nine.
And then of course we've got the confirmed US passenger, the suspected US passenger, and then now a French passenger, so that would be twelve.
Is that two French you mentioned and that last group? Was that two French you mentioned in that last group, No.
There was a Spanish woman who was There was a Spanish woman aboard a plane, and then the French passenger who was evacuated from the cruise ship. That was the passenger who passed the test whatever the testing phase was, got on the plane with five other French citizens and while she was on the plane got sick and then deteriorated.
And then tested positive.
So yes, now all those other folks who are on the plane with her are in strict isolation until further notice.
And that's the scary part of this thing. Robes a woman, as a matter of passing a test and being able to get aboard this flight in a matter of hours hours, becomes ill and I guess symptomatic, and I guess contagious at that point. Now I assume we're reading up this morning. They separate them in some kind of way. They're not on top of each other on these planes.
No, they're not sitting next to each other and coach seats. Now, these are a lot of these planes. At least we know that the US one was specialized to actually transport folks who had potentially highly contagious diseases. So a lot of these planes or facilitating they're capable of creating isolated areas. So let's hope that this French woman that I'm sure they all had masks.
If you saw any of the.
Video, any of the images of anyone receiving passengers, people look like they were in full bio hazmat suits. I mean, all precautions were being taken and even the US has said the two folks who were transported in those bio containment areas, they said that they did this out of quote, an abundance of caution. And we keep hearing that from health officials that this the risk to any member of the public is extremely low, that we're not going to be looking at a pandemic, that that's not how this
particular virus operates. But obviously all of us are still shell shocked from six years ago, and we are kind of well skeptically awaiting what happens next.
It doesn't matter how many times how many doctors we get on television saying there's nothing to worry about. It just doesn't sit right with us because we were told once before there was nothing to worry about. We get it. This is a different virus that's been around for a while, and they've got some baseline information on it. Fine, but
still robes. Now, folks are going to be waking up this morning to that news that the Americans who were coming over, seventeen of them that we were told were okay by the time the damn thing lands, we're told two of them might not be okay. All right, So what happens. Now the reason. First of all, they went to Nebraska. This is quite possibly the best facility in the world for this type of thing.
Yeah, it's funny. I would never have thought Nebraska. And then I thought, actually, that makes a lot of sense. A. The facility is there, but you probably don't want it near a major urban area if you're planning on where to house something like this. So this is called the ASPR Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Center, or it's funny riesp TC. So that's all I could think of when I saw the acronym.
So, yeah, we needed a lighter moment throughout this. Thank you for that.
If you see it, when you read it, it looks like ariesp TC.
All right, the passenger who tested positive will go to the Nebraska I guess is now going to the Nebraska bio Containment Unit upon arrival.
That was in quotes.
And then the passenger who has mild symptoms is headed to the National Quarantine Unit for assessment and monitoring. Now, I like how basically if you read this just you can see how much Health of Visuals are trying to keep concern at a minimum. They have said that the passenger tested mildly positive. Now I remember from COVID you could get a maybe a stronger line. But like I'm laughing at that. Oh okay, sorry, they're only mildly positive.
Are you mildly pregnant? That just made me laugh, Like somehow they think we're stupid.
I don't know what the point of that was, are they or not? I would just say we have a suspected positive. Why would you say a mild positive.
I don't because maybe the number of pathogens that were found aren't as high as they could have been if it was a more robust case.
So you can be kind of pregnant when it comes to the ANDES virus.
I don't know, but that's what they're saying. And then so they've used mild a lot. They said they mildly tested positive. And then the other passenger has mild symptoms.
And I'm not mildly worried at all.
Okay, In fact, the fact that they keep saying mild makes me more.
Yeah, that's the point of that.
Now, after the rest of the passengers, the other I guess fifteen who aren't exhibiting any mild symptoms or I have no mild positive tests, they can isolate at the unit there in Nebraska, or they can return home where they will be in close contact with health officials for the next forty two days, but they will not be forcibly quarantined.
That is a big headline.
That's the other fifteen correct, correct? Eric? So once they yeah, I'm sorry, did you just say how long are they expected to be this facility?
It didn't say Okay, they said they can. I don't think for long. I think they just need to be assessed and then they can return home where they have to stay in close contact with health officials.
I don't know what you do, bab.
It's everyone's different. And by the way, there is they're in New Jersey. There are now two residents being monitored. This was the development over the weekend as well. Wanted to point this out after they were potentially exposed to a cruise passenger with a confirmed case of hantavirus. After that person disembarked, So I don't know where that happens.
Oyah, those who weren't yes, So making clear that other folks in New Jersey were not actually on the ship but apparently came in contact with somebody.
Who was and who tested positive.
Who tested positive. So and those folks are not required. That's the part I'm struggling to understand. You're just trusting these folks to stay at home, to stay isolated, to stay on their own. But they are very free to go roam around and pick up vegetables at Whole Foods and put them down again. They have free reign to do whatever they want to do out in society.
To seize on the produce if they want.
Guess that's how it works, and I guess that is what you have to do. It just seems something that kills forty percent of the folks it infects.
Ye, it seems a little scary.
Yes. So we now have six states in this country where health officials are monitoring individuals who may have been exposed or I guess, who have been exposed to.
People who may have the virus.
Arizona, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Texas, and Virginia are now all either monitoring passengers who disembarked or folks who came into contact with those passages.
And I have right, the only positive hantavirus patient connected to that ship is the one who arrived in Nebraska. Everybody else is being monitored.
I believe that is the case, correct, So this is concerning.
Also a little update on that British national because it look al a lot of this information that came out was confusing. But he also remains in isolation on a remote island in the South Atlantic, and at first we thought he wasn't on the ship that was initially reported.
Now they're saying, oh, he was on the ship. So I just read this.
So British paratroopers now have parachuted in with medical supplies and clinicians to try and help him because he is apparently pretty ill. Wow, So now he is stuck there in the South Atlantic on this remote island. I mean they parachuted in British paratroopers and clinicians, that's how remote this island is to get him help. So he had been a passenger, so that makes more sense. But still
it's confusing in the stories. It might not even be that the story is changing, but the information perhaps gets a little muddled.
And that's scary too.
When you think about just the communication and just how this has all evolved. I'm concerned about the fact that now these passengers after all this time, are just now falling ill, which falls in line this up to six to eight week incubation period.
Which doesn't make sense, Babe, when you talk about what we know about, why are they just being allowed to roam free? Go back there? Thing left April first, The first guy got sick April sixth, died April eleventh, Robes, we are talking about a month ago.
It was May eleventh. Yeah, it's May eleventh today, exactly one month ago.
And people are just getting sick. What happened in that month? How early were they exposed? How late were they exposed? Was his wife still roaming around or was she did she settle in somewhere where? What is happening? Robes? A month has gone by, Gary, right, and somebody just got sick yep.
On the plane.
The French woman got sick on the plane and then they said deteriorated overnight. This is somebody who you would imagine having been on that cruise ship for literally almost a month after the first person died, they, after I guess a few weeks, realized what was going on. They've
been in isolation. They've been adhering your protocols. They've been wearing masks, they've been using hand sanitizer and still somehow she got on that plane with hauntavirus, and same with the American, we don't know, and then a suspected second American. We don't know if they're related, We don't know if they were in the same cabin. We don't know how those two possibly even interacted. So there's so many questions.
But when we come back, we will tell you just about how many hauntavirus cases are here in the United States each year and how many of them have been fatal. And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ where we are monitoring this constantly developing story. And look, it hasn't risen to the level of I don't think fear, but there is concern when you start to hear, hey, no one on the ships had symptoms for weeks. We're all good, We're going to repatriate all of these citizens.
We're going to be careful, we're going to be coordinated, and we're going to make sure that we contain this. And now we already have reportedly as many as three new cases that popped up while people were being sent back home, So two of them here in the United States, one of them in France, and now a woman in Spain possibly with the virus as well, after she was exposed on a plane a couple of weeks ago. So this is deeply concerning.
These folks know what they're doing. We have to trust these doctors when they say this is not like coronavirus. Certainly doesn't spread like that. But it's also not a brand new thing. We haven't seen or haven't heard it. We have ideas of how to deal with this one, and robe you have to trust the But it just they went so hard on telling us how difficult human to human transmission is, and now humans keep popping up with the damn virus and they're all with the place now,
and now you're telling me they're fifteen folks. You're just gonna let out here in the United States to go back to wherever the hell they're going.
And hope that they voluntarily isolate.
And are they being told to do that?
I think they are telling them that out of an abundance of caution, that is what they should go. But I don't think they have the legal right to tell them they have to unless there's some medical reason why. I mean, I would think that would be something I would be okay with I had a long time though I mean long time. Forty five days is kind of the standard what folks are saying, and it is interesting
in other parts of the world. I was looking to see how they're handling and every country is handling it differently. By the way, I know that we didn't mention this. The ship, what's the ship doing? It actually is keeping. I think they'll finally get everyone who needs to get off board off board by today, sometime this afternoon. But after they get that all those passengers off and most of the crew off, skeleton crew will stay on board head to the Netherlands. And by the way, the body
of the passenger is still on board. The German national is still on the ship.
Yep.
So the Dutch couple got off and their respective bodies ended up back in the Netherlands. But there is a German national whose body is still on board that ship. And they said that the body will have to be disinfected. They just didn't have the capability of doing it, so they have to wait, keep the body there and then they'll disinfect the body before they remove the body from the ship. I forgot to mention that. I thought that was pretty fascinating. In something I had completely forgotten about.
But look, everyone's different. A lot of folks say they're going to insist on isolation. Some countries are saying you're free to go. So it just depends on country to country. But here in the US, we have less than thirty cases of the haunt of virus a year. But it's not the Andes virus. We're just talking about the other strain that only can be contracted by ingesting or inhaling mouse or rodent feces or urine. This specific Andes virus, this human to human spread, we don't have here in
this country. There's no rodent that's ever tested positive for that strain of the virus ever ever.
And but it might be here on US soil for the first time ever today.
Yeah.
Look, that's no small thing in medical history. This will get looked at. This This is historic. This might be the first time this virus has been ever in the United States, ever been detected, ever been known. We talk about that. That's a big deal. Something that was isolated in the part of some part of the world found its way to Nebraska.
It's really frightening.
Now, it is scary, and I know we've talked a lot about the death rate of the Andes strain of the Haunta virus being at forty or fifty percent, depending on who you ask. But here in the country haunt the virus cases a third of folks who have contracted this disease have died here in this country, And it was interesting. We were talking to my dad who's a microbiologist, and his big thing was, hey, look, we yes, there's
no cure technically, but we can treat it. And if you can get early intervention and get the right kind of meds to reduce fluids and to be monitored, make sure you have enough fluid, but your bodily fluids don't overtake your lungs, et cetera. That you you know most likely can pull through. And so he was really he made me feel a little bit better saying, look, we
we can treat it. We can't cure it, we can't save people at a certain point, but we can treat it, just like we can treat the flu we can intervene in a way that limits the death toll.
Now, I guess it helps to know if somebody comes sick that we know to look for haunt a virus because most would not, and that's where you end up getting in trouble.
Like you exactly right, so exactly at least they know what.
They're looking for, what they're doing now. But I mean, what a Robes. This thing was way the hell off.
Somewhere else near Antarctica.
Isn't that crazy? Even when the strip was the ship was stricken for the first time off the west coast of Africa. Robes, it's here. Isn't that crazy? We were talking about this a month. It's here now in the United States.
I know, all right, Well, we will continue to monitor this as I'm sure you all are doing as well. But in the meantime, thank you so much for listening to us, every one. I'm Amy Roeboch alongside TJ.
Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.