398: Hantavirus Hell: The Cruise Ship & Is it Spreading?

If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms..📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources Centers for Disease Control and Prevention••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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• 0:00Annie Elise?

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• 1:23Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Assley.

• 1:48Annie Elise?

  Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Assley. With me, Annie E. Lys, here not to talk about a case with you today, but to talk about something else. Now, if you're watching this or listening to this, you may be finding yourself asking yourself the same question that you did last Friday of, Annie, what's going on? You usually release episodes only every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. It's Friday. What the hell are you doing here? Well, like last week, we've got a bonus episode for you today. I have got a bonus episode for you today. And the reason why is because I talked about this situation a

• 2:29Annie Elise?

  little bit in headline highlights last week. And so many of you were sharing your opinions, sharing what you've heard, sharing your theories, asking questions and not knowing enough information, asking for more. So even though it's not true crime related, it is certainly news related. And I figured, I want to just answer all of these questions and I want to break everything down for you. And you know, I love timelines. I love map time. I love figuring it all out and like, walking you through everything in chronological order. And so you have all the information in one comprehensive episode. And so I wanted to do that today. Now, with that being said, I will say this too. Sometimes these bonus episodes come out on days that are

• 3:13Annie Elise?

  not Fridays. So make sure that you are either subscribed right now on YouTube, press that subscribe button, or press the follow button if you are listening to the audio version of this. Now let's get into why we are here together today. I'm sure that most of you have seen something on your feed about the Hanta virus over the last couple of weeks. Many people are comparing it to COVID. Many are concerned about another lockdown happening. Some people are wondering what the heck this even is, what it means, are we at risk, what's happening with this cruise and the disembarkment and like, what's going on? Now, the truth is, it is something that is rapidly developing with new updates coming out every single hour. In fact, I'm going to put all of the updates in here, everything we know, as I mentioned. But more than likely,

• 3:58Annie Elise?

  if you're watching the video version of this, you will see at the end of this, towards the end, that I'm back on your screen, in a new outfit, wearing something new, because after I get this all done and edited and tweaked, there probably will be even more updates. And I want to make sure that the moment this releases, you have all of the up to date information. So I'll probably end up recording a pickup. But like I said, I just really want to deliver everything that we know in chronological order, so that it will be easy to update you guys as more information surfaces. We can have it all in one place and, you know, really go from there. Now, I'm going to talk about the cruise itself, the people affected, the deaths, the how many people have contracted the virus.

• 4:39Annie Elise?

  What it means now that there are people back on American soil with the virus and what it all means, but what I want to start with is the most important information, which is what the heck the hantavirus is, how it's transmitted, what the symptoms look like, all of it, so that you can get a better understanding of the virus itself, especially as this continues to become a larger concern. So hantaviruses are a group of viruses that are carried by rodents, and they can cause severe disease in humans. Now globally, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 hantavirus infections occur every single year.

• 5:20Annie Elise?

  However, the majority of these cases are in Asia, particularly in China. People usually get infected through contact with infected rodents, or their urine, or their droppings, or saliva. Sorry, I had to grab my notepad. But infection with hantaviruses can cause a range of illnesses, including severe disease and death. In the Americas, hantaviruses can cause hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome, otherwise known as HPS, which that is a very severe respiratory illness, and it has a case fatality rate of up to 50%. In Europe and Asia, hantaviruses can cause a horrible fever with renal syndrome, which

• 6:03Annie Elise?

  is also known otherwise as HRS. And like I just said, I grabbed my notepad, guys, too, because I have so many like stats, information, blurbs, and I'm just going to kind of be going offbeat here and just, you know, talk through everything as I have it. So let's talk a little bit about the incubation period. In humans, symptoms usually begin between one and eight weeks after exposure. This depends on the type of virus, and typically, these symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, and some gastrointestinal symptoms such as, you know, ab pains, nausea, or vomiting. But this is what a lot of people are stuck on, because if symptoms don't begin for up to eight weeks after exposure...

• 6:49Annie Elise?

  That obviously is a very long quarantine period where people are suggesting and some are mandated to stay quarantined for eight weeks to see if a symptom develops, if they show signs of them. So then they can determine if they have in fact been infected with the virus. So overall, let's talk through what the symptoms usually are, just to group them more together. As I mentioned a little bit, early symptoms can include fatigue, fever, muscle aches and muscle aches mainly in like the large muscle groups, thighs, hips, back, sometimes even shoulders. And about half of all HPS patients also experience headaches, dizziness and chills.

• 7:30Annie Elise?

  In HPS, the disease may progress rapidly to, to coughing, shortness of breath, accumulation of fluid in the lungs and even sometimes shock. In HRS, later stages may include low blood pressure, bleeding disorders and kidney failure. Obviously incredibly scary, some horrific symptoms as well. And just that's why I think a lot of people are fearful right now and not even necessarily fearful because this isn't meant to fear monger, it's just to give you education. But people are curious, they want to know more about what this is and if they are at risk and what to look for and all of the things. So that leads me into transmission.

• 8:10Annie Elise?

  Let's talk about how transmission occurs because transmission of hantavirus to humans, it occurs from contact with, like I said, contaminated urine, droppings, or even saliva of infected rodents. Infection may also occur, although less commonly, through rodent bites, where I think normally when we hear rodent bites, we think of rabies and things like that. But no, anything with an infected rodent from their urine, their, the smell of their urine, like the infected urine, their droppings, their saliva and of course saliva through a bite, that is a way of transmission. Activities that involve contact with rodents such as cleaning in enclosed

• 8:52Annie Elise?

  or poorly ventilated spaces or farming or forestry work or sleeping in rodent infested areas, that of course increases the exposure risk. Now here's where this now becomes more confusing because you're probably thinking like, okay, great. Well, I'm not around any rodents. I'm not, the likelihood of me being around an infected rodent at that is not very high. So why is everybody paranoid and freaking out about transmission and all of that? Well, because the strain of this particular part of the hantavirus is the Andy's virus. And this is the only hantavirus that is known to have documented human to human transmission. It's airborne, which means that you can come into contact with this virus by breathing

• 9:37Annie Elise?

  in contaminated air. Doesn't matter if you're around rodents or not. If you are near someone who is sick and has this illness in that eight week period of, you know, incubation and all of that, and they cough or they're breathing, you can then contract the virus. Taking that a step further, human to human transmission occurs through, as we know, close contact such as sharing a bed or intimate contact. And there's super spreader transmissions, which can take place if you are in enclosed spaces. And it doesn't matter if the space is small or large. If you're in an enclosed space and you're breathing the same air, you can, it can be transmitted through the air particles.

• 10:18Annie Elise?

  However, experts also believe that you can contract the virus in other ways, including touching a contaminated object and then touching your nose or mouth, eating contaminated food, or, as I said originally, rodent bites. Now this strain is also different from other hantaviruses due to its ability to not only spread from person to person, but also through animal to human transmission. The primary host of this disease virus situation is a long tailed pygmy rice rat, a very small rodent that is common in rural areas of Argentina and Chile.

• 11:01Annie Elise?

  Cases of this particular strain and of the virus in itself tend to peak in the spring and summer months when rodent populations are higher and when people are outdoors and more susceptible to exposure. There's also no proven treatment specifically or any sort of vaccine for Haunta virus or for the strain of the Andes strain of it. Supportive care is usually needed to treat the respiratory illness, cardiac complications, kidney issues, all of those things, but it's not something you can just go get a vaccine for or get a special medication for. It's something that you have to ride out with supportive care and hope that your body is strong enough to fight it and overcome it, which, and I'm

• 11:44Annie Elise?

  going to get to this in a little bit here, as we know unfortunately has not been the case for some. So now that you have a better understanding of what this virus is, how it works, the transmission, the incubation, all of those things, all the symptoms, let's talk about the root of this, okay? The cruise. Oceanwide Expeditions has been doing these polar expedition cruises for over 30 years, and they're pretty much really well-known for offering this much smaller, more intimate experience rather than a massive commercial cruise ship. Their trips are designed to be really immersive, both onboard experiences and actual land excursions that are built into the expedition. It's supposed to be,

• 12:27Annie Elise?

  you know, a tight group of people, you're really interacting with one another, they encourage interaction, and it's more close quarters than when you think of, you know, a Carnival cruise ship, for example. Now, the ship at the center of this outbreak is the MV Hondius. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. I've seen a couple of different versions of how it's pronounced. But according to the company's website, the ship is 107.6 meters long and it's considered a polar explorer vessel. The ship holds 170 passengers, between 80 cabins, and it maintains a 57-person crew, including one doctor. Now, what we know, we don't know the whole breakout of the 170 passengers, but we do know that 17

• 13:12Annie Elise?

  of the passengers are from America. I did see a stat elsewhere that said between everybody, there were, gosh, I'm going to probably screw this up, between 23 and 36 different countries represented onboard. And-

• 13:27Annie Elise?

  I can't, gosh, I can't remember that number. I should pull it. But just to give you an idea of how many different countries are represented to where how many different countries it will then be, the people will then disembark and be dispersed to. So in terms of like the packages and why people go on these expeditions and what they pay, prices range from $7,000 to $36,000. And the expeditions range in length from nine days to 23 nights at sea. So the passengers who are on a typical voyage of one of these expeditions are from anywhere from their 30s to their 80s, with the majority of them being between 45 and 65 years old.

• 14:08Annie Elise?

  Some of the stopped, some of the planned stops along this particular cruise or expedition, whatever you want to call it, were Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, Nightingale Island, Tristan de Cunha, St. Helena, and Ascension. Now with this too, when you board the ship, there are physical health requirements that they screen you for and that, you know, you have to be in good health. You must be in good overall health. You must be able to walk several hours per day. Because as I said, they really encourage close contact. And to join most of the excursions, you have to be able to get up and down the steep gangway, all the way from the ship to the water level.

• 14:53Annie Elise?

  So that you can then board these two inflatable Zodiac boats. They can take you to the land excursion and then return back again. The company even has a disclosure that is listed on their website that reads, quote, "Remember, you will be traveling in remote areas without access to sophisticated medical facilities. So you must not join this expedition if you have a life-threatening condition or need daily medical treatment." So basically, it's like you can come on this if you are not like a thrill seeker, but somebody who likes expeditions, adventures, land voyages, sights. You're in good health. You can walk. You, you know, don't, won't require medication. You don't have any illnesses. Like you have to be in overall good health.

• 15:39Annie Elise?

  So that tells you a little bit about the ship, the population on the ship, and the expectations of people boarding the ship. But now I want to talk about the timeline, the outbreak, and what it now means now that that cruise has disembarked. So let's start, and I'm going to do this in really chronological order for you, okay? Because I want to just like break it all down because this really all started April 1st. So the ship leaves Argentina. Then between April 5th and April 6th, the ship arrives at the Sandwich Islands. Fast forward, a couple of days after that, about 10 days into the cruise itself, a 70-year-old Dutchman died onboard of the ship. Nearly two weeks later,

• 16:24Annie Elise?

  which I don't know why there was such a lag, if it's just because you're isolated or how it works, but nearly two weeks later, his body was taken off the ship and his cause of death still is under investigation. Then, two days after that, two to three days after that, April 13th to 14th, the ship arrived at Tristan de Cunha. The ship's GPS signal was lost, though, on the way to its next destination. So there's some tracking between the 13th and the 14th all the way until April 22nd and April 24th that are not exact, and so I don't want to cite it exactly here. But we do know that April 22nd to the 24th, the ship arrived at St. Helena. All right, I feel like we need to just have an honest conversation

• 17:09Annie Elise?

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• 17:49Annie Elise?

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• 19:17Annie Elise?

  The ship signal was lost again, though, when they were en route to their next destination. So, fast forward two days to the 26th, and the wife of the first victim. She then dies in Johannesburg after collapsing at an airport in South Africa. And she was confirmed to have had a variant of the Hantavirus. So this is the wife of the Dutchman who died onboard, what was that, a week earlier. Still, cause of death unknown, even right now at the time of this recording. She was on there, the ship with him, or I'm sorry, she, I don't know if she was on the ship with him, or if they had contact. No, yeah, she must have been on the ship with him.

• 19:58Annie Elise?

  But anyway, two weeks later, his body's taken off, and then a week later, she dies in Johannesburg after she collapsed at the airport in South Africa. And like I said, she was confirmed to have a variant of the virus. The next day, the ship arrives at Ascension Island, and a British passenger is medically evacuated to South Africa from the ship. This passenger is tested in an intensive care unit also in Johannesburg, and he too is confirmed to have a variant of the Hantavirus. Couple days go by, and we now get into May, so just a couple of weeks ago, and we're going to go all the way until now in real time.

• 20:38Annie Elise?

  But on May 2, a German national died aboard the ship as well. The following day, on May 3, the ship arrived at Cape Verde. The next day, on May 4, the Cape Verde authorities refused to allow the ship to dock at the port of Praia, a decision that they said was to protect public health. Because at this point, all of the news was happening, okay? People were online, people were talking about it, people were getting nervous. And so there was a question of, are they going to allow them dock? Are they not? There was rumors that Spain was going to allow them in. But then they were like, no, no, no, we want to protect our community. We're not going to allow you to dock. And so this is where everything really did start to take flight

• 21:22Annie Elise?

  in terms of conversation. The World Health Organization also confirmed that a strain of Hantavirus was spreading aboard the ship, with two lab-confirmed cases and five more suspected cases. At this point in time too, you may have noticed, if you're on TikTok or Instagram, a travel influencer named Jake posted a video from the ship. I'm going to play that for you now.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  I normally wouldn't make a video like this, but I feel like I need to say something, so I wrote a few things down. I am currently onboard the MV Hondias, and what's happening right now is very real for all of us here. We're not just a story. We're not just headlines. We're people, people with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home. There's a lot of uncertainty, and that's the hardest part.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  All we want right now is to feel safe, to have clarity, and to get home. So if you're seeing coverage about this, just remember that there are real people behind it, and that this isn't something happening somewhere far away. It's happening to us, right now. I'll share more when I can, but for now, I just ask for your kindness and understanding. Thank you.

• 22:48Annie Elise?

  So now this has gone viral. Everybody is glued to it. Everybody is finally hearing about it, and everybody's wondering what this means. There's fear of lockdown. There's fear of the transmission. It's highly contagious. It has this eight-week period of time in which there's incubation. Like, what does this mean? So May 6th was like a mega day. Because on May 6th, the South African Department of Health confirmed that testing on infected passengers from this cruise ship showed the outbreak strain was, in fact, the Ondes virus, the strain that is human-to-human contact, that it can be transmitted through air particles, and that it's not just you being exposed to an infected rodent, that you can get this from an infected person.

• 23:33Annie Elise?

  Meanwhile, in Switzerland, officials said that a man who had traveled on an earlier leg of this cruise ship's voyage became seriously ill after returning home. And he was then hospitalized in Zurich and was confirmed to have Haunty virus. It was the very first known case that was connected to the ship, where somebody got sick after leaving the ship. Wasn't sick on the ship, but after leaving the ship. So then, authorities immediately knew they needed to start tracing possible exposure contacts. Flight tracing, mapping, figuring out how many people these people have come into contact with. Also, three passengers ended up being medically evacuated from the ship

• 24:16Annie Elise?

  after their conditions rapidly worsened, including two people who were reportedly in very serious condition. So they were then flown to the Netherlands on a medical Airbus, and ambulances were waiting for them when they landed. Around this same time, Spain's health minister, Monica Garcia, announced that the cruise ship was officially heading toward the Canary Islands, where passengers would finally be allowed to get off the ship. Spanish citizens and anyone showing symptoms were, however, expected to quarantine at a military base in Madrid, while asymptomatic passengers from other countries would just be sent home. Which, this is what I personally, I'm not a doctor, obviously I don't work at

• 24:59Annie Elise?

  the CDC, but this is what I have issue wish, can't talk, this is what I have an issue with. This is May 6th, okay?

• 25:09Annie Elise?

  The ship took off on April 1st, right? That is not eight weeks that has gone by. So it doesn't matter if they are asymptomatic. We know that there is an eight-week incubation period, and all of these people have been showing signs. So yeah, you're saying, okay, you need to quarantine on this military base in Madrid, but if you're asymptomatic, go ahead. There is still what? A three or four-week balance in which symptoms could possibly show up, but you're going to allow them to travel, to be on, you know, heavy populated airlines, to go through airports, to go to different countries? That, to me, feels grossly irresponsible, and like you're asking for a super-spread type situation.

• 25:50Annie Elise?

  Again, what do I know? I don't work for World Health or any of those organizations, but like, kind of feels like common sense to me, unless I'm just a complete bonehead. Then, things became even more alarming when World Health officials confirmed that the outbreak strain was indeed Ondi's hantavirus. It wasn't just that that one person had that strain, that was the outbreak strain, which, that is considered one of the deadliest forms of this disease, and, as I mentioned earlier, the only known strain capable of spreading from person to person.

• 26:25Annie Elise?

  So as investigators kept trying to figure out where this all started, Argentine officials suggested that the outbreak may have traced back to a bird watching excursion involving the deceased Dutch couple. Authorities believed that they may have been exposed to infected rodents during that time because this bird watching took place at a landfill. And it was before they ever even boarded the ship. So they're saying, okay, this Dutch couple went to this landfill. They were bird watching, doing this whole excursion. They got, or they became contaminated and infected because there are rodents in landfills. You know, obviously. They maybe didn't even know that they had symptoms because again asymptomatic. It can, you can go eight weeks without a single symptom.

• 27:09Annie Elise?

  And then they boarded the ship and then it started snowballing from there. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization also confirmed that the number of lab confirmed hantavirus cases had climbed to five with three additional suspected cases still under investigation among passengers and crew members. And in another grim update, the World Health Organization officials also confirmed that the body of one of the deceased passengers was still being kept onboard of the ship as the situation was unfolding, still just sitting there, just waiting. Overnight, so still May 6th, kind of rolling into May 7th. Remember I told you this was a jam packed day, right?

• 27:53Annie Elise?

  French officials revealed that a French citizen was now being monitored as a hantavirus quote "contact case" after traveling on the same flight as one of the infected cruise ship passengers. Which again, I know airplanes are all different sizes. Some are like the big Boeing 757, some are smaller. But if you're putting these passengers who are asymptomatic on these flights, you're, and you're, again, we know it travels from person to person in enclosed spaces, big or small. You're in an enclosed space regardless if they're recirculating the air. You are putting so many more people at risk. And then how are you going to gain control of this, right?

• 28:37Annie Elise?

  Meanwhile, US health authorities said that they were actively monitoring passengers from the infected ship across multiple states that they have now disembarked to. Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas, also Virginia. And officials said that they were working to contain any possible spread of the virus. Fast forward the following morning, and a newly released video from a passenger ship showed the moment that the first death was announced. Now, in this video, and I'm going to play it for you, the captain mentions how the 62-year-old man suddenly died overnight. The doctor said that the man died from natural causes. They believe that the cause was not infectious, so that this ship should be safe.

• 29:21Annie Elise?

  And this took place weeks earlier, this actual speech, but the video was not released until May 7th. So he also goes on to say that the death will, you know, affect some of the operations, but not a ton, and that death sometimes happens at sea, and that it's very sad and very tragic. But go ahead, take a listen.

• 29:41Speaker 04

  Um, oh yeah. This is my sad duty to inform you that one of our passengers suddenly passed away last night. Uh, tragic as this, it was due to natural causes, we believe, and also, um, whatever health issues we're struggling with, I'm told by the doctor were not infectious. So the ship is safe when it comes to that. Uh, of course, it's a very, very sad circumstance that will have an effect on our operations. Um, I'll...

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Leave the equals to harm.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Look, it happens at sea sometimes, very sad, very tragic.

• 30:44Annie Elise?

  The next day, so May 8th now, the California Health Department said that they are monitoring one of the former passengers of the cruise ship for potential hantavirus infection and that a second California resident is also still onboard the cruise ship. Then, fast forward another day, on May 9th, and as the situation escalated, the CDC sent out an alert to doctors and health departments all across the United States, warning them to stay aware of the potential for imported hantavirus cases. All cases connected to the cruise ship outbreak. At the same time, though, officials emphasized that the risk of this widespread transmission

• 31:27Annie Elise?

  in the US was still considered extremely unlikely. Which, again, personally, and I'm not a doctor, I don't know how you can confidently say that. How can you say that widespread transmission is extremely unlikely when you don't even have a full tracing yet? And you don't know, you haven't even gone through a full eight-week period yet at this point to know, just from that first batch of people on the cruise ship, what percentage ended up being infected and what percentage weren't? And then tracking where those infected ones went? Like, how can you confidently say that? Meanwhile, officials from the Canary Islands Regional Government announced that all passengers aboard the cruise ship were expected to begin evacuating from the ship within the next 24 hours.

• 32:10Annie Elise?

  Which, in another major update in all of that, the CDC confirmed that the US government did not plan to quarantine any of the American passengers returning from the cruise ship once they arrived in Nebraska for disembarkment.

• 32:25Annie Elise?

  And that has pissed off a lot of people, especially, you know, as people are now filtering into the States. Then, fast forward to Sunday, May 10th, Mother's Day, early Sunday morning, the cruise ship finally arrived off the coast of Tenerife, dropping an anchor near an industrial port around 5:30 a.m. local time. Officials said that they expected evacuations from the ship to be completed by the end of the day. Shortly after that, the 17 American passengers aboard this cruise ship officially began disembarking from the ship. They were then prepared for transport back to the United States, where they would be flown to the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, the only federally funded quarantine

• 33:09Annie Elise?

  unit in the country, and it's operated by Nebraska Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. So in total, 18 people were placed on the American flight, including 17 U.S. citizens and one British national, who was also a U.S. resident. And at that point, the CDC said that none of the American passengers had tested positive for Hantavirus. However, just hours later, the situation changed once again. The Department of Health and Human Services announced that one American passenger had, in fact, tested positive for Hantavirus, while the plane carrying the 18 passengers was already en route back to the U.S.

• 33:52Annie Elise?

  And because of that, officials confirmed that two passengers aboard the flight were being transported inside the aircraft's biocontainment unit, quote, "out of an abundance of caution." So you're transporting all these Americans back, saying that nobody has tested positive, but then you're like, oh, whoopsie, just a few hours later, there actually is someone who's testing positive, and there's two passengers now who are, we're going to contain into the bio, you know, we're going to put in the biocontainment unit just out of caution. Feels like you jumped the gun in terms of trying to transport them back, right? Like, again, why aren't systems in place to not, like, Monday morning quarterback the situation and actually get ahead of the situation?

• 34:34Annie Elise?

  Of those two passengers who were contained "only out of an abundance of caution," officials said that one was, in fact, already showing mild symptoms, while the other had officially tested positive for the virus.

• 34:47Annie Elise?

  So, now going on this week, here's where we're at. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive, save hundreds. Because switching your home and auto insurance is way better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So, switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. Today's episode is sponsored by Wayfair. Now, you guys know I'm constantly changing things out in the studio, at my house, everywhere. I always have some sort of room that I just want to refresh. I want to like, do a little mini upgrade, change something out, flip it around.

• 35:30Annie Elise?

  So, recently, I wanted to change my kids' rooms. They have, they're growing, they need like, full-blown hampers now, I need to organize their stuff more. So, I went to Wayfair, knowing exactly that I was going to find what I needed. They spec it out for you, they have the exact measurements available, you can like, see the reviews, and it's just, it makes it so easy to find something and feel confident about what you're buying. And, I love it now, it like, their rooms look so cute, they're so organized, love, love, love for them. And Wayfair just makes shopping for your home so easy because there are thousands of products across basically every style and budget. Their products also have been hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection. Plus, you have those trusted reviews that will help you decide. So, whether you're replacing one thing or completely transforming a space, there is so much to choose from.

• 36:14Annie Elise?

  Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. Eventually, all 18 American passengers safely arrived back in the United States. Once they landed, one passenger was immediately placed in another bio-containment unit at the University of Nebraska, while 15 other passengers began quarantining at the university's National Quarantine Center. This as officials continued monitoring them for symptoms. Meanwhile, two additional passengers, including the one that was already showing symptoms,

• 36:55Annie Elise?

  they were transferred to a specialized bio-containment unit at Emory University in Atlanta for what officials described as, quote, "further assessment."

• 37:06Annie Elise?

  And as health officials continue tracing possible exposures, California authorities released quite a bit of new information, revealing that four California residents who may have been exposed to the Hantavirus were now being actively monitored, meaning it has in fact started to infiltrate in the states. Thankfully though, at the time of this recording, which I will update you in like a day, once I get the video edit done and you know, there may be more news. All four of them were reportedly healthy. They're not showing any symptoms. So again, we just have to kind of like watch it as it progresses. U.S. officials say that 12 U.S. residents are under monitoring by state health official departments

• 37:49Annie Elise?

  for Hantavirus now, and seven of those 12 were cruise ship passengers, passengers who disembarked before the outbreak was declared. Two are in Texas, two are in Georgia, one is in Virginia, one is in Arizona, and one is in California. The other five people were exposed to an infected individual during air travel. Two of them are in New Jersey, two are in Maryland, and one is in California. Hi guys, as promised, I'm back on screen because it's the end of the week now and I have a few more updates. So really quickly though, going back to that guy, the influen- the travel influencer, who was sharing his take on the case, and I know I told you that it's a little bit controversial.

• 38:33Annie Elise?

  People, his name is Jake, people think that he could be a paid actor and all this stuff. Over the last few days too, there have been a lot of comparison videos made online because he also had made a video back when COVID was going on, where he was advocating for the vaccine and things like that. So people were like, oh, he's a hired spokesperson for the CDC or for whatever. People are saying that he's from Central Casting, all of these things, and that basically it's like a whole ruse. So again, you can go down the rabbit hole on all of that if you want. Literally, all you have to do is search on TikTok his name, or you could even search "Hantavirus scam," and I bet they would come up. I'm not saying I believe one thing one way or another, but there are- A lot of people who do believe that.

• 39:18Annie Elise?

  So now we're at the end of this week. May 12th, 13th, 14th, lots to go over, okay? And here's where we're at. 12 staffers at a hospital in the Netherlands are now currently under quarantine after mishandling blood and urine samples from a Hanta virus patient. A positive patient in France also is preventing a severe form of the virus and is currently on life support in serious condition. Moreover, 25 crew members and two medical staffers are remaining on the cruise ship, which is, by the way, in route to the Netherlands. Two residents of King County, Washington, are also being monitored at home after they

• 40:02Annie Elise?

  sat on a plane near an ill passenger from the cruise ship. That passenger was removed from the plane and later tested positive. So I know I already went on that whole ramp, but like, why'd you put these people on a plane, right? It feels grossly irresponsible. The Illinois Department of Health said that on Tuesday it is investigating a potential case of Hanta virus in Winnebago County that is not connected to the cruise ship outbreak, but a potential other outbreak. The Minnesota Department of Health also said that it's monitoring the condition of a person who may have been briefly exposed overseas with another person who tested positive for the virus after being onboard the cruise ship.

• 40:43Annie Elise?

  So as of Thursday, this week, May 14th, here's where the breakout is. And this is, I'm recording this in the morning, so by the end of day today, maybe there will be a couple new updates, which again, if you want these updates, just let me know and I'll come back on here and just keep you current. There are eight confirmed cases, meaning that the patient in those cases has tested positive for the virus. There are seven suspected cases, meaning these patients are symptomatic and they're hospitalized right now waiting for test results. There are 173 people who are currently in isolation or in quarantine and being monitored after being exposed to the virus.

• 41:26Annie Elise?

  We also know that at this point, three people have died from the virus. Now, in like, reality, you look at those numbers and they don't seem relatively large in comparison to the whole population, right? However, I did see a tracking map and a spreading map, or like a spreader map, if you will, where it is more infections and cases and exposures than what we started with with COVID. And we saw how quickly that spread. And again, I'm not here to fear monger. I'm just telling you what I've seen and what I know. I don't know if this is something we need to worry about. It's personally for me, it's more of just like, it's something I'm just gonna watch and I'm just kinda, kinda be curious about, but I wanted to give you guys the information so

• 42:11Annie Elise?

  that you can decide what you do with it. The Director General of the World Health Organization announced, quote, "There is no sign that we're seeing the start of a larger outbreak." Which here's what I have to say. That's great that there's no sign, but maybe that's because you're in this moment in time. But clearly, if you look at the history from April 1st, as it's evolved all the way to mid-May now, there have been, it has been growing. It has been progressing. More people are dying, more people are getting sick. So obviously, whether that's considered large on your scale or not, fine, fair, but it is growing. And is there a plan to cut it off at the knees to where you're quarantining people regardless for the eight weeks to make sure it doesn't spread before sending them on a plane or in

• 42:54Annie Elise?

  a busy airport or back to their state where they have the freedom to then roam around and see friends and see family? It just feels, again, more like Monday morning quarterbacking. Now, I will say this as well, just to be fair, playing devil's advocate. I don't know if it's because sometimes I get onto conspiracy TikTok, or there's just so many different opinions out there, but I just wanna, so you have the full holistic view of everything. I do wanna say this. Many people suggest that this is fake, that this is a diversion, that this is a distraction, that this is something that is meant to distract us from something bigger going on. Other people are suggesting that this virus was planted on the ship as a way to throw

• 43:37Annie Elise?

  us into another lockdown for government control. Other people are saying that from that first video of the travel influencer Nick, that he's a paid actor, that he has some sort of sponsorship with Instagram, or, I don't think Instagram, but like, that he has like, some sort of skin in the game with all of this. I don't know that I'm ready to jump to any of those conclusions, but I will say I have seen a lot of chatter out there and which is why I think it's worth mentioning of I think there's a lot of conflicting opinions out there. What the truth is, it's so early in this situation. I don't think any of us truly know, but there are quite a few people out there who do not believe everything on the surface and what's being shared and what's being told. However,

• 44:20Annie Elise?

  conversely, on the other side, there are a lot of people who are very scared and very nervous, not only for the transmission, but the idea that there could be a potential lockdown in the future. So I'm just reporting the information that we have been able to receive, the timeline we've been able to build so that you have all of the information, what you do with that and what opinions you form with this information, totally up to you. I'm not citing one way or another. I'm just saying there are some missteps in my opinion along the way of how this has been handled. Feels pretty scary that like we don't have a better handle on this or that we didn't and that we just like let people gallivant and go off to, you know, and disperse. But again,

• 45:01Annie Elise?

  who am I, who am I, who am I, little, who's little old me in all of this? So that's where we're at right now. I'm going to let you guys know as soon as we have more information. Let me know if this is something you are still interested in following. Maybe we will do little updates here and there, maybe not a full episode. But again, I know it's not true crime, but a lot of people were asking for information on this or have opinions. And so I thought, hell, why not throw it up as a bonus episode and talk about it? I certainly have been researching it and my team has been researching it. Like, why not? What could it hurt? But I'm curious where you stand with all of this and what you think. Do you, are you of the camp that believes that this is real? They need to get it under control. This is scary. Are you in the middle where you're like, I don't, I think people are exaggerating it. It's not that big of a deal. It's under control,

• 45:46Annie Elise?

  like whatever it is, what it is. Or are you on the other side of it where you're saying like, this is either planted, staged, fake, a distraction and like, I don't believe any of the bullshit that we're seeing. Curious. And no, no judgment from me. And please don't fight with each other in the comments either. I'm just genuinely curious to know what you guys think about this. So let me know in the comments. Other than that, I will keep you updated if you want. And let's hope that there are not any more fatalities from this virus because... I mean, it's just awful and let's hope it really, truly is contained and that like the director of the World Health Organization said, there is no sign that there is going to be a start of a larger outbreak.

• 46:30Annie Elise?

  Fingers crossed because I know you don't want to go searching for toilet paper again either, or spraying your Amazon packages. So that's where we're at now. I will keep you updated. Thank you for tuning into the bonus episode. Reminder for these bonus episodes, the way that you'll get notified of them is if you are subscribed on YouTube and following on the podcast. All right, guys, until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, avoid rodents, maybe, and I don't know, just keep an eye out, I guess. I don't want to say like, keep your distance or do anything like that because I'm not trying to like fear monger, that's obviously not my point, but just, I don't know. I guess I'll say this, until the next one, stay healthy. Bye.

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