The mass-media driven hantavirus cruise ship panic has completely collapsed.
After weeks of fear-driven headlines about a so-called “person-to-person” hantavirus threat outside the MV Hondius, U.S. officials may finally allow the 18 American passengers to leave the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, and return home.
But there is a disturbing catch. They may only be allowed to finish quarantine at home if their state posts a monitor outside their house 24/7 for the remainder of the six-week quarantine period. That monitor could reportedly be a police officer or public health worker stationed outside their home around the clock…
The largest systematic review on the Andes strain looked at 22 studies and found NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE of human-to-human transmission.
There are still zero confirmed U.S. cases and no evidence of spread outside the cruise ship. In other words, this appears to be a dead-end outbreak.
Now, federal officials are moving from biocontainment confinement to home surveillance. Because of this unusual new requirement — a monitor posted outside the person’s home for the final half of the 42-day quarantine — at least one state, New York, has reportedly refused to allow passengers to return home under those conditions.
One passenger said:
“This is not acceptable. We’re not f*cking criminals. Unless you have a good reason to think that we are going to not comply, then treat us with respect.”
This is no different than the authoritarian biosecurity controls seen in Communist China: forced quarantine, movement restrictions, government monitors, and ordinary citizens treated as major biohazards even when the public risk is negligible.
Hantavirus will not become the next pandemic. But the biosecurity state will absolutely try to become permanent.
Hellbound and Down 