Another lockdown coming? Hantavirus outbreak sparks fear as US prepares for 17 Americans' quarantine

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]There were 17 that would definitely be arriving. Each individual will have their own room. Each of the rooms looks very much like like a hotel room um with the addition of uh availability of Wi-Fi, of uh exercise equipment. Uh you know, with if the quarantine is prolonged, those will be important in terms of making sure they're comfortable. As far as the uh the quarantine period uh where they're they're going through their daily uh stay with us, um it's you know, pretty much like staying in a hotel room with uh delivery of of food. Um you know, they can't use their exercise uh devices in the room. We do daily symptom and monitoring as well as vital sign checks, and they will be interacting with our with our staff uh through that process.

[00:00:41]Hi, I'm Ashley Thieman. I'm the director of public health for Nebraska. So, under Governor Ricketts' directive, Nebraska DHHS is committed to working hand-in-hand with our federal, state, and local partners to ensure a safe and coordinated response as this team has um briefly overviewed what that looks like.

[00:00:58]These fellow Americans have endured an unimaginable ordeal, and Nebraska stands ready to help bring them home and ensure they receive the care, dignity, and support they deserve while protecting the health and safety of our communities.

[00:01:11]Nebraska has a proud tradition of stepping forward in moments of need, and we are fully committed to supporting our federal, state, and local partners in this mission.

[00:01:20]This decision was made carefully in consultation with leading infectious disease experts, hospital partners, emergency management officials, and federal and local public health partners. These Americans will receive the highest standard of care as a precautionary measure. Um and I think we're opening it up to questions.

[00:01:44]How long will they be monitored?

[00:01:49]Well, at this point uh they will uh arrive and receive an epidemiological assessment, and at that point uh the quarantine period will be determined.

[00:01:57]But at this point, we don't have a defined quarantine period.

[00:02:04]You mentioned the passengers that will be arriving to Miramar on Sunday, I believe.

[00:02:08]Do we have an estimated time when they'll be arriving here at all?

[00:02:12]Not yet, but I think that's something that will come together over the next few days.

[00:02:17]Will they be flying into I believe March Field Airport?

[00:02:21]Yeah, that will all come come forward in the next few days. Thank you.

[00:02:26]Are you folks involved in the transport as well? Do you have Are you sending anyone there since you have the transport training and capabilities as well?

[00:02:35]Yes, so we're we're supporting everything that we can.

[00:02:39]So, we've been in contact with federal agencies, the CDC, the US State Department, HHS, and administrative administration for strategic preparedness and response. And so, we are providing technical support to all of those activities however we can to help advise and guide the safe return of these passengers.

[00:03:05]Did you say 19 passengers will be brought here? I thought it was 17 Americans on the ship.

[00:03:11]I did say 19. I think the most recent information we had that was there was 17 that would definitely be arriving, but there was the potential for 19.

[00:03:20]Can you talk a little bit about what the quarantine will look like?

[00:03:23]What what they'll have in their rooms?

[00:03:25]You know, will they be each one person in an individual room? You know, what's the setup like for the people who will be here? Absolutely. That Each individual will have their own room.

[00:03:33]Each of the rooms looks very much like like a hotel room with the addition of availability of Wi-Fi, exercise equipment.

[00:03:42]You know, with if the quarantine is prolonged, those are key important in terms of making sure they're comfortable. As far as the the quarantine period, when they're they're going through their daily stay with us.

[00:03:53]It's pretty much like staying in a hotel room with delivery of food.

[00:03:59]You know, they can't use their exercise devices in the room. We do daily symptom and monitoring as well as vital sign checks, and they will be interacting with our with our staff through that process.

[00:04:12]How did COVID prepare you guys for something like this?

[00:04:17]Uh from from my perspective, really focusing on on the the coordination with our partners, with our our local, state, and federal partners a great deal.

[00:04:25]Um there's there's been a number of coordination meetings and engagements where we're seeing the same people that we seen before. We have a high high degree of trust.

[00:04:35]Um and even when we think about our activities, providing technical support to different elements that are happen before the the quarantine unit, uh it is really helpful to have that background experience and having done it before and and start from the point of knowing what works and being able to adapt that for the situation.

[00:04:54]And I'd just add that as as far as the COVID experience, that really focused us in terms of our preparation, regular you know, drills with full PPE, different scenarios that we encountered during COVID that now we are simulating so that we have a standardized response to just about anything that could occur in the quarantine period. So, it really did focus our attention on what's important.

[00:05:18]I I think for a lot of folks this situation reminds them of the pandemic and COVID. Can you talk a little bit about how the hantavirus compares to COVID and how concerned people should be about the possibility of this virus spreading?

[00:05:30]Sure. So, hantavirus and COVID, in my infectious diseases eyes, are two extremely different viruses.

[00:05:38]You know, COVID-19, as we all found out, was highly transmissible, you know, viral illness, and um, it had a you know, a low mortality rate. Um, Hantavirus is a bit different in that it is not known to be transmitted person-to-person typically. Now, there is one single strain of Hantavirus, and that's what this has been confirmed to be, that can be transmitted person-to-person, but typically that transmission requires very close contact, um, with an infected individual. So, as opposed to what we saw with COVID-19, which was where people could be in not necessarily very close contact and become infected, um, because of the, you know, potential for droplet and airborne spread.

[00:06:17]Hantavirus are are very different in that, you know, even the virus, Andes virus, that this has confirmed to be has not caused sustained human-to-human transmission previously. Um, this is not a new virus. This is a virus that has been around for a while, um, in Argentina and Chile. And so, you know, we have not seen sustained human-to-human transmission with Hantavirus, um, as we saw with COVID-19.

[00:06:40]So, I think again, two very different viruses, two very different risk profiles. Um, I do not see this as progressing to a worldwide pandemic, although there's still a lot of unknowns, and I think we all need to recognize that. But, two extremely different viruses, um, with a different transmission pattern.

[00:06:57]How did the fact that it emerged on a cruise ship affect that? I mean, does a cruise ship create conditions so that that help it spread or?

[00:07:03]Yeah, just the environment of a cruise ship and the fact that these individuals, this is a relatively small cruise ship, too, you know, with uh, with a a small number of individuals who probably had a fair amount of contact with each other, um, you know, through their day-to-day activities, whether that was on on the shore or on the ship itself. Um, you know, and so there's definitely an opportunity for close contact, whether that's being in the same room with an individual, um, uh, you know, uh, like staying in the same room, I should say, in a cabin, versus, you know, having a lot of face-to-face contact or caring for someone who is ill. And that is something that there were several ill individuals on this on this ship, and there were people who assisted with caring for those individuals, and so that also can be a risk factor. You know, that up close and personal contact. But this this virus is not known to spread in a sustained way person to person through indirect, you know, contact.

[00:07:54]It's really You really need to be up close and personal with somebody as far as as you know, again, if history tells us anything, that's that's what we've learned. This person on the back. Yes.

[00:08:04]Charles Fish. How many specialists do you have and are they able to handle this volume?

[00:08:11]So, on our biocontainment team itself, we have over 100 healthcare workers of different backgrounds. Some are nursing.

[00:08:19]We have respiratory therapists on our team. We have patient care techs on our team. We have a variety of nurses from all different backgrounds, whether those are critical care nurses or floor nurses or ER nurses, OR nurses. So, a lot of different nursing backgrounds on our team. We also have a large physician group that can typically consist of mostly critical care physicians as well as infectious disease specialists, but also we have a variety of other different specialties on our on our clinician team. And so, we have drilled for this exact event. We have contingency plans. And fortunately, we are supported by our hospital and our healthcare system and that when we need to respond to events like this, we're able to do so. If I could just add, just to be clear, these are 17 healthy individuals.

[00:09:04]These are not sick at the moment. So, that's why they're in the quarantine.

[00:09:08]So, the quarantine unit is a place where you put people when you're observing them, where they may get diseases, but the vast majority in general do not go on to develop disease.

[00:09:18]So, to So, if they were to end up in the biocontainment unit, that would mean that they already are showing signs and symptoms of being sick. So, when you ask about the number of people they're able to care for, these are normal human beings who are just going to be living a normal day while they're here unless something happens to them. Then they'll be transferred and then be able to get the care that Dr. Hewlett was referring to.

[00:09:40]And then the team is composed that way so that if there is anything from just daily needs that they are able to get in the community for chronic illnesses, we can provide for that. We can consult our internal medicine physicians to look at their medications, if they are having any drug monitoring, those sorts of things we can provide for them the care that they would get in the community so that being in quarantine is not going to compromise their health in any way. It's going to be a smooth process. But then we have critical care physicians, we have critical care nurses, emergency physicians and nurses that if there are any medical problems, and we've seen you know, a lot of different things in our our unit that are not related to infectious disease, but falls can occur.

[00:10:21]You know, older individuals can have other acute health events. So, we want to make sure that a quarantine period does not put those those folks at risk for care that wouldn't be provided for routine medical problems or for emergency medical problems that might develop. If an infection is noted, if the symptoms become positive, then we're also well equipped to get those patients safely transferred to the biocontainment unit.

[00:10:46]And you're sure how many times has the quarantine unit been activated before?

[00:10:52]Oh, a definitive number? Well, I I think broadly speaking, we we activated a number of times for COVID, right? Early on with Wuhan and and Diamond Princess repatriations, and then now again. So, kind of two major events and a number of quarantine activations for for those.

[00:11:18]Back when during the Ebola outbreak, you know, that kind of gained the Omaha kind of gained center of national conversation.

[00:11:26]Do you feel this is similar in any way?

[00:11:28]And I guess the second part of that question is, what has UNMC kind of learned since uh that Ebola?

[00:11:35]Yeah, so I I wouldn't say that this is similar in any way to Ebola. Uh very very different disease um with a a very low infectious dose. So, if you're exposed to someone infected with Ebola's bodily fluids, it's it's very easy uh relatively speaking to to be infected. What I will say, the connection for me to the Ebola work was that as an institution uh UNMC really embraced an interdisciplinary interdisciplinary approach to how we cared for Ebola patients and prepared and provided that care safely. And over the last decade, we've maintained that interdisciplinary approach kind of exemplified here. Um and it does make us a a really robust and and nimble team able to to troubleshoot or or deal with things where we don't have all the evidence and and don't know everything about something, but we have a lot of diverse perspectives to to figure out solutions.