US ends hantavirus outbreak response with no answers on draconian quarantines

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Bizarre

We still don’t know why RFK Jr. overruled CDC expert to order strict quarantines.

Evacuation by boat of passengers on board the cruise ship MV Hondius anchored near the port of Granadilla, on May 11, 2026 in Granadilla de Abona, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

Credit:

Getty | Europa Press Canarias

The US response to the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak has concluded with no cases among American passengers but plenty of questions on the responses from Trump administration officials.

The US’s response to the outbreak ended on Sunday, June 21, with the final 42-day monitoring period wrapping up for passengers of the virus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius. But without explanation, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the end of the response today, June 24, with a press release dated June 23.

Anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touted how HHS acted “swiftly” to respond to the outbreak and credited federal efforts for preventing “sustained transmission of hantavirus occurred in the United States,” despite no Americans bringing the virus into the country for sustained transmission to be possible.

“The successful conclusion of this response demonstrates the strength of a coordinated response to infectious disease threats that occur outside of our borders,” Jay Bhattacharya added in the press release. Bhattacharya is acting as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention despite exceeding the 210-day limit for filling a Senate-confirmed position. “As a result, we prevented any new cases from arising in the US,” he said.

Soon after the press release was sent out, the CDC held a very short press briefing about the response, during which an official continued to boast of the successful conclusion without directly answering any questions.

Excessive quarantines

Significant questions remain about the Trump administration’s use of draconian quarantine orders during the response. Those orders exceeded those in Chile and Argentina, where the hantavirus in this outbreak (the Andes virus) is endemic. They also exceed what hantavirus experts recommend and what the CDC’s own expert recommended.

Specifically, hantavirus has only been documented to spread when infected people are showing symptoms. Based on experiences from Chile and Argentina, where thousands of people have successfully quarantined amid Andes virus outbreaks, remote monitoring with daily symptom and temperature checks is sufficient. This is also what the World Health Organization has recommended.

Without explanation, Trump officials required potentially exposed, repatriated cruise passengers to either stay in a federal quarantine unit in Nebraska, where they were essentially in strict isolation, or, in some cases, people were allowed to go home if their local health authorities agreed to surveil them 24/7 and do twice daily in-person fever and symptom checks. Oddly, MV Hondius passengers who returned to the US before the outbreak was identified were not subject to this requirement once they were identified.

Of the 18 people repatriated from MV Hondius, five were allowed to go home before the end of the 42-day quarantine period, with at least four of their home states known to have agreed to the CDC’s strict conditions.

Puzzling orders

One other passenger who remained at the Nebraska quarantine unit, Angela Perryman, also wanted to go home. However, health officials in her home state of Florida refused to accept CDC’s terms, instead suggesting remote monitoring with once-daily symptom and fever checks, which they determined was sufficient. Trump officials rejected the proposal without explanation and ordered Perryman to stay in Nebraska. In response, Perryman requested a review of her case in an appeal of the order. CDC staff expert Michael Bell then reviewed the case, acting as a quarantine medical reviewer.

The report of Bell’s review, which was obtained by Jeremy Faust of Inside Medicine, shows Bell firmly sided with Florida.

“Based on the foregoing, in my professional judgment, I recommend that the Federal Amended Quarantine Order be rescinded to allow Ms. Perryman to return to her home for the remainder of the 42-day quarantine period, if the Florida Department of Health agrees to accept responsibility for Ms. Perryman’s continued public health monitoring, to include remote symptom monitoring once daily,” Bell concluded. He wrote that it was “a reasonable and efficient approach that is consistent with the level of transmission risk associated with Andes virus infection. It is also consistent with the ongoing management of several other exposed individuals from the MV Hondius.”

Four days later, Kennedy signed an order extending Perryman’s forced quarantine in Nebraska, with no explanation as to why Bell’s assessment was overruled.

At today’s press conference, almost all of the questions from reporters related to Perryman’s case and the justification for the strict, unevenly applied quarantine protocol. Brendan Jackson, CDC’s acting director for the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, dodged all of the questions.

Jackson would only say that it was a “complex response,” and that “a decision was made across the federal government about the monitoring requirements for passengers returning home after their stay at the National Quarantine Unit.”

While the baffling US response has ended, the orderly international response continues. In a press briefing today, WHO reported that the outbreak tally remains at 13 cases with three deaths. More than 650 contacts have been identified and traced in 33 countries and territories. Only 54 contacts are still under quarantine, the last of which ends July 2. If no other cases are identified before that date, WHO will consider the outbreak over.

Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes.

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