US passenger on hantavirus-hit cruise blocked from leaving federal quarantine

Ms Angela Perryman, an American passenger exposed to the deadly hantavirus on a cruise ship in May, expected a short stay at a special quarantine facility in Nebraska after her arrival last week.

On May 18, after making plans to depart, she received a federal order requiring her to stay for at least two more weeks. Health officials said they would contact law enforcement if she tried to leave.

“They are requiring us to remain in a locked facility and threatening us,” said Ms Perryman, 47, “and denying us the right to home quarantine.”

Federal health officials did not respond to requests for comment. But the order Ms Perryman shared with The New York Times says officials believe she would “constitute a probable source of infection to other people” if she left the facility to travel to another state.

The mandatory quarantine, citing public health law, was authorised by Dr Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Ms Perryman and 17 other American passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are being monitored at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, where they arrived a week ago.

At least three people have died from the outbreak on the ship, and several more have fallen ill.

Ms Perryman said she had been tested once for the hantavirus, and the results were negative. She is not experiencing symptoms, she said, although she did have brief conversations on the ship with a passenger who later died from the illness.

The quarantine order requires her to remain in the Nebraska facility for 21 days after her arrival, a period that expires May 31. That three-week period is when the risk of becoming symptomatic from the hantavirus is at its highest.

Ms Perryman said at least one other passenger in Nebraska received a similar order.

Hantavirus is a rare family of viruses carried by rodents. The World Health Organization has identified the Andes subtype, which can be transmitted between people who have had close contact, as the one that affected the cruise passengers.

Federal health officials said previously that the 18 American passengers would need to be screened and monitored for several days, but had suggested that passengers might not be required to stay for the virus’ full 42-day incubation period.

“At some point, they may be able leave their medical centres to continue quarantines at home, depending on how they are doing,” Captain Brendan Jackson, a CDC official, said in a news conference last week after the passengers arrived in Omaha and Atlanta.

He said that each would have an “individualised decision plan”.

The last time the federal government issued quarantine orders was in January 2020, when officials imposed a two-week quarantine on almost 200 people who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak originated. They were held at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California.

“Typically, we don’t hold people against their will unless there is no alternative,” said Dr Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the pandemic centre at Brown University’s School of Public Health.

She said the CDC could be trying to reduce the burden on local and state health departments, or ensure that if someone does fall sick from the hantavirus, they would immediately be able to receive proper care. But historically, she said, there has been a very high bar for such federal mandates.

“I could understand patients being like, ‘Listen, I’m going to be stuck somewhere for 42 days, I want to be in my own home,’” Dr Nuzzo said. “To me, that seems like a reasonable thing to accommodate.”

Ms Perryman is a US citizen who currently lives in Ecuador, she said. She has a home in South Florida, where she was trying to go in order to isolate at an Airbnb. Ms Perryman said she had been told that the government would provide transportation, so that she would not expose people on a commercial flight.

That changed on May 17, Ms Perryman said, when she and the 17 other passengers were told during a video conference call with federal officials that they had to remain at the unit voluntarily, or receive a mandatory quarantine order keeping them there.

The National Quarantine Unit consists of 20 rooms with special air-pressure systems designed to trap contaminated air. Each room has a television, Wi-Fi, exercise equipment and a large bathroom and closet. Despite the amenities, Ms Perryman said, she would rather quarantine in a less restrictive setting.

Her quarantine order says she will be given a medical review within 72 hours, and then can appeal the order. Ms Perryman said she has contacted a lawyer and plans to take legal action.

At least seven other Americans departed the cruise ship before it reached the Canary Islands, flying back to the United States on commercial flights before the outbreak was detected.

Those people are being monitored by their state health departments, Ms Perryman noted. “Home quarantine is an absolutely reasonable approach,” she said. NYTIMES