'It's under control, we hope': Trump after being briefed on cruise ship hantavirus outbreak
President Donald Trump on Thursday said he was hopeful that a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship was under control and that the administration would soon release a report on the situation. Speaking to reporters, the President assured that his team will do "the best" to stop the virus from spreading, and it "should be fine" as the six Americans who were onboard the cruise ship on which the deadly virus spread came back home. So far, three people who were exposed to the virus on the ship that set sail from Argentina have died, but experts suggest the risk to the general public is low.
"It's very much, we hope, under control," Trump told reporters Thursday on his visit to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, where he has ordered a renovation project. "It was the ship, and I think we're going to make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of people. There are a lot of great people studying it. It should be fine," Trump added. When asked if American people should be worried about an outbreak, President Trump said, "I hope not. We'll do the best we can."
Public health authorities around the world are working to contain the outbreak that started on a cruise ship in early April. The ship's 30 passengers, including six U.S. residents, disembarked in St. Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. The Americans, two of whom are from Texas, are back home and are being monitored by health officials, Forbes reported.
Despite the stream of alarmist headlines, the World Health Organization has urged people not to panic, as the risk of the virus to the general public is very low. "I want to be unequivocal here. This is not the start of a COVID pandemic. It spreads very, very differently," Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic management at the WHO, said at a press conference on Thursday, NPR reported. The Hantavirus typically doesn't spread from one person to another, and only certain strains of it carry the risk of transmission upon close contact. Currently, a huge operation is being carried out to trace people who were potentially exposed to the virus and have taken flights home to numerous countries, including the U.K., South Africa, the Netherlands, the U.S., and Switzerland.
While the risk of a public outbreak is reportedly low, some have expressed concerns over the underpreparedness of U.S. health departments. The news of the Americans who returned was first shared by MedPage and not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to The New York Times. The CDC issued a statement about the outbreak only four hours later, saying, "We are working closely with our international partners to provide technical assistance and guidance to mitigate risk." Stephanie Psaki, the coordinator for global health security during the Joe Biden administration, told The New York Times, "We should be able to deal collectively with a hantavirus outbreak much more quickly and effectively than this is happening."
