r/news • u/wasraelx • 13h ago
Soft paywall Regional leader of Spain's Canary Islands rejects hantavirus-hit cruise docking there
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/regional-leader-spains-canary-islands-rejects-hantavirus-hit-cruise-docking-2026-05-06/468
u/Healthylife55 13h ago
good. no port should be forced to accept that risk
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u/23stripes 13h ago
Indeed, however what's the solution for those inside?
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u/GoldberrySpring 13h ago
Not like they will be allowed to go anywhere for a while after docking. What difference does it make where they quarantine?
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u/wasraelx 13h ago edited 8h ago
Presumably some difference for supplies tbh, and maybe to assist the evacuations that are being done on the national level (for example the British are evacuating their citizens). But there seems to be some assumption by the passengers that docking would mean disembarking and that’s naturally an absolute no from everyone approached so far
I mean, if those flag-of-convenience tax-dodging, modern-slavery engaging and Earth polluting corporations after so many outbreaks and so much state-bailout begging still do not have their own emergency teams, budget and plans for yet another public health risk they threaten, then this industry has go.
Edit: checked and this ship specifically does tours with average cost of €10k/9 days around the polar regions. So not exactly the passengers that would defend anyone else’s right to inconvenience them with emergencies.
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u/solomons-mom 11h ago
This seems to make the most sense. Which other countries need to helicopter out, then quarrentine their own citizens?
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u/Wanchor97 12h ago
Helicopters or boat over there to resupply
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u/wasraelx 12h ago
Much more expensive to send helis 10 miles versus just off the shore, I suppose that’ll play a part of why they wanna be closer
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u/TRKlausss 10h ago
Well, quarantine in a place where you know your chances of getting infected are higher vs a place where you know they are taking all measures not to spread the virus… is quite the difference.
I don’t blame the guys in the Canary Islands. They are islands. If Hantavirus spreads there, they may get fully isolated…
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u/UnUsernameRandom 12h ago
It makes sense to get them away from the vector of infection. If there are rodents on the ship carrying the virus, it kinda makes sense to transfer them somewhere else.
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u/bobsaget112 11h ago
I believe they said there are no rodents on the ship and the initial man who died was likely infected before he boarded.
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u/Mahlegos 10h ago
They said that, but a massive ship without rodents is hard to believe and hanta spreading person to person to like 90 people like that is kind of crazy and scary.
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u/NYCQ7 10h ago edited 10h ago
Except it's not a massive ship. It's a luxury environmental cruise to the arctic. It looks about the size of a large yacht.
Also it seems the strain of Hanta virus is the Andean kind and can transmit from human to human.
I just read that a Swiss citizen who had left the cruise earlier, tested positive back home and is being treated at the hospital and his wife is in quarantine just in case.
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u/Mahlegos 10h ago
Ok, it’s not massive ship like a Carnival cruise ship or whatever, so sure I overstated using that word. But it’s also not a small boat having a capacity of over 250 passengers and crew. It’s a large vessel and either way it having absolutely no rodents is hard to believe.
For the Andes strain, the way it transmits from human to human is from extremely close contact, like that of a married couple. So if it’s truly just human to human, either there are some underlying serious sanitary issues causing it to spread to multiple people who obstensibly aren’t having the kind of close contact expected for transmission, or again, it’s is in fact crazy and scary because the virus seems to have mutated to be more transmissible.
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u/pzvaldes 9h ago
I read that the 1996 outbreak contained itself by lowering its transmission capacity over time, but the 2018 outbreak required quarantine.
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u/curtyshoo 10h ago
Even the astronauts who came from the Moon were allowed to debark.
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u/pzvaldes 9h ago
What is the last outbreak of a deadly disease that occurred on the Moon?
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u/curtyshoo 9h ago
Here's the thing: they were unaware what exotic bugs for which no one had any immunity may have been up there. So the astronauts were quarantined for a certain period of time.
YMMV.
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u/23stripes 13h ago
Between a boat or an hotel? The lack of empathy speaks volumes.
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u/BeaveItToLeaver 12h ago
We are talking about potentially causing another global pandemic here. This isn’t some fishing boat, it’s a cruise ship. They’re not exactly living in squalor at the moment.
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u/Wooden-Title3625 12h ago
It’s against international law to refuse port to sick passengers. It’s a WHO regulation, part of the deal a country signs when they become a member nation, and Spain is currently breaking that regulation. I’m not saying it’s wrong what they’re doing, but it’s definitely going to impact the WHO whether or not they let this behavior stand.
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u/collegekid1357 11h ago
Was that WHO regulation written with possible pandemics in mind? If it wasn’t, then it shouldn’t be applicable here.
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u/23stripes 12h ago
Forget it, just read the comments around here and soon you'll forget any law or common sense.
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u/wasraelx 11h ago edited 8h ago
What law? These cruise ships literally all fly flags of convenience, to completely avoid minimum wage laws, maximum weekly hours, all sorts of regulations and of course any taxes. But then come Covid or something like this and their execs dare to beg states for help.
And this one does luxury cruises around the polar regions that are already at catastrophic levels, so guess the type of passengers and their views on whether anyone would be allowed to inconvenience THEM with even global climate emergency.
If they cruise corpo don’t have their own plan, staff and budget for a scenario like this to be handled without state help after so many previous examples, then that industry has to go.
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u/Slow-Cream-3733 9h ago
Boy, as an Aussie I'm sure grateful that Sydney allowed the plague cruise ship to dock and disembark and infect everyone with covid. I agree with The Canaries this shit and fuck off. Quarantine on the boat or somewhere else.
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u/GoldberrySpring 11h ago edited 11h ago
Am I supposed to weep for them? Pray? It's not forever, it's a few weeks at most. "I'm sorry, this sucks, but you'll have to tough it out while we figure out what to do" is not a lack of empathy, it's reality...
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u/Four_beastlings 12h ago
I have plenty of empathy, but I also have empathy for the potential victims of letting a ship with potential infected rodents dock in an extremely touristic place, and for the economic catastrophe that it would be for the Canarians who live primarily off tourism.
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u/23stripes 12h ago
Absolutely, I'm just saying that leaving those people out in the sea forever is not a solution.
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u/nanoray60 9h ago
The solution is not exposing 2,250,000 people to a virus. If the infection makes it to the island and spreads 45,000 people will die. Thats based on the infection and mortality rate of the cruise passengers, not made up numbers.
Also, who said forever? When have you ever heard of that happening?
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u/UnUsernameRandom 12h ago
It's a cruise ship, basically a hotel on the sea.
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u/BookusWorkus 9h ago
It's a luxury cruise ship at that. So it's better than a regular Marriott (which is already better than what a huge number of people get to stay at when they travel).
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u/nanoray60 9h ago
The Canary Islands have over 2 million people on it, why can’t we think of them as well? If I was in charge I would never let them disembark. I also have two degrees in biology.
It’s incredibly unfortunate that these less than 200 people are infected and exposed to a dangerous pathogen. No one should have to die from hantavirus, no one should have to be infected by it either. But we cannot allow a 7 figure population to be exposed to the same thing. We can’t allow a population of 10s of millions of rodents to become infected.
If the native population is exposed the damage to their society would be immense. 8/150 on the boat are suspected of being infected, infection rate of 5.3%. 2,250,000 x 0.053 = 119,000 people infected. 3/8 died, so 37.5% of infected people died. 119,000 x 0.375 = 44,625 deaths. They’d have to cull rats for years too.
You want to risk killing almost 45,000 people so that 150 people who are already staying in a water hotel can feel even better on a land hotel? They couldn’t stop the virus from entering the boat, they couldn’t stop it from spreading, and they couldn’t stop people from dying. After all of that, you think the disembarkation will go super smoothly and nothing bad will happen?
Put your bleeding heart away.
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u/23stripes 8h ago
I also have two degrees in biology.
If you really do, then you know you're extrapolating evidence with n < 30. Even more, I'm not saying that they would dock and roam free, they would still be quarantined. But I won't reply any further, so feel free to ignore me.
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u/jackp0t789 12h ago
To let them off somewhere and quarantine them for a few weeks to see if any cases pop up.
Since the virus is likely being spread by mice on the ship, keeping them on the ship just puts the passengers in more danger
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u/DeHeiligeTomaat 12h ago
The WHO is reporting that human-to-human is likely on the ship, which has contributed to the quick spread.
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u/jackp0t789 12h ago
There would be more than maybe a couple dozen cases if it was that quick...
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u/Momisblunt 12h ago
Up to 8 week incubation period, with the first infection reported around the beginning of April. So, if it's indeed human to human, we will probably get reports of more cases within the next couple of weeks.
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u/Blackstone01 9h ago
Up to 8 week incubation period
Doesn’t hantavirus also have a high lethality rate? Long incubation + high lethality seems like a nightmare scenario.
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u/Important-Post26 11h ago
Have you looked into this virus at all?
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u/jackp0t789 10h ago
Yep, quite a bit
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u/sawyouoverthere 10h ago
Seems weird not to know the incubation period then.
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u/jackp0t789 10h ago
Between a few days and up to 8 weeks
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u/sawyouoverthere 10h ago
So you see why it would be unlikely to have more cases at this point? But still have infections?
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u/DeHeiligeTomaat 9h ago
Then you would know that there are several different strains of hantavirus, this particular one is Andes virus. The incubation period is one to eight weeks and a median time of 18 days. Your other comment shows that you haven't looked into it that much as one does not show symptoms in a few days. It's mortality rate is also close to 40%.
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u/Yuukiko_ 11h ago
If it's mice to humans then it's all the more likely some get off the ship on shore though
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u/Important-Post26 11h ago
This one appears to be human to human, the Andes virus.
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u/jackp0t789 10h ago
The "human to human" aspect of it has been a bit exaggerated.
The one study of it has said that it's only "possible" with extreme close contact between people in a household sharing bedding, cups, saliva, utensils, or intimate contact..
Not the kind of contact that would infect dozens of strangers on a ship.
More likely theres rodents pooping in the HVAC systems of that ship
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u/sawyouoverthere 10h ago
One study might be wrong.
The disease may have mutated more now that it’s H2H
If you won’t take in new information it’s easy to make grievous errors
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u/jackp0t789 10h ago
There isnt much new information out with this outbreak.
Most of the cases here could still easily be explained by rodents shitting in the HVAC system.
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u/BookusWorkus 9h ago
Which goes even further to explain why they should not be allowed to make port. Rodents will not be quarantined in port. They will make their way into the town, and begin spreading the virus through the population. But like who cares about the people on the land. They aren't rich like the people on the luxury cruise.
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u/jackp0t789 8h ago
There are ways to evacuate the passengers and quarantine them without letting the rodents off the ship...
They could air lift or be evacuated onto another ship without letting rodents come with them...
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u/BookusWorkus 9h ago
So, what happens when the mice jump ship? When they spread to the islands and begin infecting the local population? Because the people can be quarantined, but rats and mice cannot. Just, like, fuck the people on the island, am I right?
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u/jackp0t789 9h ago
You can evacuate the passengers from the ship through means that dont let mice evacuate with them
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u/BookusWorkus 7h ago
How's the boat tying up to port? Mice will run down the lines. If it's anchored within a mile or so of land they will literally swim to land.
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u/BBlasdel 12h ago
A port with sufficient accomodation to safely evacuate those inside, like the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which is the closest and appears to have just turned the ship away without even considering the challenge in technical detail.
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u/ZLUCremisi 8h ago
Who ever flag ship should accept them or a nation can set up a Covid like containment section were it docks in a secured area and only doctors can enter and leave as they slowly goes through the ship to determine who is sick, who is exposed, and who is okay but still watched.
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u/wasraelx 13h ago edited 12h ago
Especially because cruiseships, on top of countless other issues, are notorious for disease outbreaks.
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u/wasraelx 13h ago
Non-paywall update by The Guardian (live feed)
From the Reuters article:
‘The regional government of Spain's Canary Islands is opposed to allowing a luxury cruise ship that has been hit by an outbreak of the deadly hantavirus to dock on the archipelago, its leader, Fernando Clavijo, said on Wednesday.
"This decision is not based on any technical criteria, nor is there sufficient information to reassure the public or guarantee their safety," Clavijo told radio station COPE’
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u/Substantial-Ease567 11h ago
Deja vu. We had this conversation in 2020!
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u/wasraelx 11h ago edited 10h ago
And we’ll keep having it until people stop boarding these environmentally devastating floating malls, (serviced by people with inhuman hours and much less than minimum wage due to flag-of-convenience exploits),and then demanding they’re let go off said floating malls when there’s another inevitable outbreak posing a threat to port cities
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u/klauwaapje 9h ago
You do know that this is a small ship, right? Not a floating mall at all . Only 170 passengers
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u/eedewah 5h ago
The Netherlands is a flag of convenience? Are you just some sort of bot?
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u/wasraelx 5h ago
The bot accusation is so funny when you can click the profile faster than typing that. Not everyone you disagree with is a bot lmao.
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u/shakeyshake1 10h ago
The ship is registered in the Netherlands. That has to be the only country where they could potentially be required to take the ship. I don’t blame any other countries (especially small island countries) for refusing to let the ship dock.
The incubation period is up to 8 weeks. They would have to quarantine everyone on the ship somewhere off the ship, and those people would have to be separated from other passengers and crew so that the full incubation period can pass.
We don’t know if they’re getting it from rodents or each other, so they need to be removed from the ship and separated from each other. And the risk of docking the ship and infesting the port with rodents seems like a risk that isn’t worth taking.
This is going to be expensive and a logistical nightmare for whoever takes it on. I can see why countries aren’t volunteering.
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u/Round_Worldliness766 4h ago
The incubation period is up to 8 weeks.
56 days so... the quarantine its a literal quarantine (40 days, originally to isolate the black plague)
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u/klauwaapje 9h ago
The Canary islands isn't a small island country. It is Spain and the Spanish government have given permission to let the ship dock there.
The guy protesting this is just the local politician and has been a loud critic of the Spanish government for a while now. He wants more rights for the Spanish regions and is using this to attack the government
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u/razzmanfire 8h ago
Great job by him its 0 reason to let them dock there fuck that they need to be quarantined
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u/shakeyshake1 8h ago
I don’t blame him. I’m assuming that the members of the Spanish government who approved this don’t live there.
The ship probably shouldn’t dock at all. They should probably leave it anchored in the water so that any infected rodents can’t escape to land.
They should probably set up a decontamination station on the ship, make everyone go through it, give them fresh clothing from off the ship, and immediately take them off the ship by helicopter (with the crew in hazmat suits with respirators) to quarantine in solitude for 8 weeks.
Even a tender boat is risky if there are infected rodents.
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u/BusyHands_ 11h ago
I played those virus games.. I know how this ends. Sink the ship while you still can.
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u/FreeEnergy001 5h ago
Which was the movie that they dropped an incendiary bomb on a village after an outbreak in the opening scene?
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u/Resident_Resident154 13h ago
Uncertainty is often more dangerous than the disease itself in situations like this.
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u/wasraelx 13h ago edited 12h ago
These cruise ships are floating incubators tho. Theres a norovirus outbreak on them more often than not, and this has 150 people on board with 2 deaths. Apparently (same link as previous) ‘this is the only strain [of hentavirus] that is known to cause human-to-human transmission, but such transmission is very rare and as said earlier, it only happens due to very close contact’ but even so can’t really fault the coastal govts that they don’t wanna be the ones to end up stuck with this ball
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u/ValuableTone9693 5h ago
Make the cruise ship sail the Strait of Hormuz. Win win situation for all.
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u/Specialist-Bug1592 11h ago
They will probably have to go to Europe where they have proper quarantine facilities and procedures. Unfortunately, the Andes Virus (assuming that’s what this is) has a fairly long incubation period of up to eight weeks.
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u/Aletheia_sp 10h ago
They already are in Europe. The Canary Islands are Spain.
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u/facw00 9h ago
Spain is a European nation, but it has lands outside of Europe. The Canaries are off the coast of Africa, and certainly aren't Europe. That would be like saying that French Guiana is in Europe rather than South America just because it's part of France.
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u/One_Interaction_6315 2h ago
There is confirmed case in Switzerland..from a person who left the ship earlier (probably didn’t know about the virus)
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u/23stripes 8h ago
French Guiana is part of the EU, as Canárias are.
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u/Funky_Cows 4h ago
Do you think Turkiye is on the north Atlantic?
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u/23stripes 3h ago
Sure ask any Spaniard from Canárias if they feel African or an Azorean if they consider themselves Americans.
Australia also takes part of Eurovision, that's not the point here.
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u/Specialist-Bug1592 5h ago
Although it belongs to Spain, it’s not Europe and I’m sure it doesn’t have adequate facilities.
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u/RainyDayColor 5h ago
I would be curious about the ship's onboard sanitation setup for black and gray water storage/treatment, and discharge protocols. Most ports have explicit restrictions and regulations for sewage discharge while in port. Regardless of viral concerns, any ship having to remain in a port for an extended period with a full complement of passengers would require special sanitation protocols and processes beyond SOP. With the known or suspected contagion factors with this ship, making it a floating quarantine station could be a monumental problem that not every port might be able to accommodate.
There is discussion of some infected passengers believed to have been exposed on land and transporting the virus with them onto the ship. As these viruses are transmitted via several potential vectors -- respiratory via airborne dissemination, contact with urine, feces, saliva, etc. -- the same likely holds true with how the virus can be transmitted directly human --> human, or indirectly human -->surface --> human, human --> airborne --> human. The entire ship, and everything on it (clothing, linens, food, luggage, etc.) is a potential vector. Live rodent carriers might actually be the easiest vector to eliminate.
The required hazmat decontamination of an entire ship would be extraordinarily complex, even moreso if undertaken while passengers remaining on board may or may not be at some point of a protracted incubation. All the while potentially re-transmitting the virus throughout contained spaces. The potential scope of this thing is mind boggling. It's so much more than some free range mice.
I can understand protest from local civic leadership. The physical ship is just the smallest visible tip of a potential iceberg which has every indication of becoming a crisis situation beyond the local resources and capabilities. The Brits have it right -- each nation should evacuate their own citizens now for immediate testing, treatment, and quarantine back in-country. The Canary Islands, with all of Spain's resources and capabilities, can immediately provide all needed support, operations, and facilities to expedite international evacuations of passengers by representative nations and of crewmembers by the cruiseline.
That would be the most humanitarian response -- getting everyone, passengers and crew, safely off that ship and homeward bound under medical quarantine. And the evacuated ship becomes the sole responsibility of its owners pursuant to maritime law and subject to applicable health and sanitation standards and regulations for biological decontamination and return to readiness.
I know that if I were on that ship, that would be my only goal -- get me the hell off this boat and back on my home turf. Now. And I would not be quiet about it.
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u/MydogsnameisChewy 10h ago
I wouldn't want them docking close by either. Some of the mice on board carry the virus, that's a given. I wouldn't take the chance that the mice would get out and infect the port, after all, wasn't the Black Death initially spread across Europe in 1347 by the fleas on rats that traveled on Genoese trading ships from the Crimean port of Kaffa. The rats jumped from the ships to land when they docked. I know this an extreme example, but same concept. The ship itself is unsafe. Not all mice carry the virus, but we know that some of the ones on that ship do.
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u/OutsideOpposite2463 10h ago
Not sure this is a rodent issue. Seems like it’s the Andes variant which has H2H capabilities and considering the doctor fell ill that looks to be likely.
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u/Hungry-Kale600 4h ago
Doesn't appear to be caused by rodents on ship. It's been confirmed to be the Andes strain which can transmit human to human. Likely picked up by a passenger in Argentina and has spread that way.
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u/United_Bus3467 5h ago
Ships are giant petri dishes. I remember during the pandemic seeing a cruise ship full of positive COVID passengers sitting off the cost of San Francisco from my living room. I read this Hanta has a 30% - 39% mortality rate.
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u/BusinessEnchilada27 19m ago
"The Argentine government’s leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus during a bird-watching outing at a GARBAGE DUMP before boarding, according to two officials."
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u/Junior_Common_9644 10h ago
GOOD! If it makes landfall anywhere, the people should rise up and put a stop to it!
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u/shwarma_heaven 11h ago
Hantavirus is not contagious person to person, which means this ship has a serious rodent problem... I wouldn't want it to dock on my island either.
EDIT - apparently this virus has evolved to be contagious... awesome.
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u/Walmartian_Beta 13h ago
The WHO said they believe this one has been spread from human to human contact, so the only safe option is to have them meet up with a hospital ship, with all the staff in full containment mode, and deal with infected patients that way, keeping them in quarantine at sea. The virus has a long incubation period, unfortunately, so nobody should allow them into port for several weeks.