Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Thursday, May seventh, and we
Speaker 1: have gotten a significant update about that hantavirus cruise ship.
Speaker 1: Remember we were under the impression that the threat was
Speaker 1: just to the people on that ship. Well, the information
Speaker 1: we're getting now is that up to forty people got
Speaker 1: off that ship and went back to those home countries
Speaker 1: of theirs up to a dozen countries and yep, one
Speaker 1: of them is the United States of America. And with that,
Speaker 1: welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Robes different
Speaker 1: story this morning.
Speaker 2: This is huge. This is a massive update that we
Speaker 2: are just now learning about on Thursday, and it's been
Speaker 2: a little interesting because the numbers have even changed for
Speaker 2: the first time. Yeah, we're learning forty passengers left that
Speaker 2: hantavirus cruise ship on the island of Saint Helena nearly
Speaker 2: two weeks after the first patient died.
Speaker 1: Say that one more time for the people in the back. Yes, Robes,
Speaker 1: forty is significant.
Speaker 2: Passengers went back to at least twelve countries two weeks
Speaker 2: after that seventy year old man died of hauntavirus on
Speaker 2: the cruise ship. Among those passengers was his wife, So
Speaker 2: that was the only person we heard about and we
Speaker 2: only heard about that yesterday that she actually flew on
Speaker 2: a commercial plane from Saint Helena to Johannesburg. She gets
Speaker 2: off the plane, she collapses in the airport and dies
Speaker 2: later at the hospital. She was among the group of
Speaker 2: people who disembarked.
Speaker 1: All right, so we need to robe. So you're what
Speaker 1: you're saying here now, and what we are reporting this
Speaker 1: is we don't want this to get into a sketchy
Speaker 1: area of we are doubting the information we've been given.
Speaker 1: But Robes, there have been a complete one eighties in
Speaker 1: information that's been given, and this information is critical to
Speaker 1: public health right now. Now it's possible, I want to
Speaker 1: give them all right, the possibility that information is coming
Speaker 1: in and they are just learning and they're getting updates.
Speaker 1: But robes to be told, we had no idea first that,
Speaker 1: Oh it was a shock. Wait a minute, this woman
Speaker 1: got on a commercial plane. Wait a minute, she was
Speaker 1: on a commercial plane with other people from the same
Speaker 1: infected ship. Okay, and wait a minute, she's not the
Speaker 1: only one of people went all over the place. Robes,
Speaker 1: folks are all over the world now and a race
Speaker 1: is on to track them down and to get them away.
Speaker 1: From the general public.
Speaker 2: That is not an understatement. And here's the deal. Like this,
Speaker 2: I know we don't want to doubt, we want to
Speaker 2: be able to believe the information coming off the ship.
Speaker 2: But how about this for confusing Today today the company
Speaker 2: that runs this ship said about twenty nine people got off,
Speaker 2: and then just a short time later, Dutch officials came
Speaker 2: out and said, no, it was more like forty people
Speaker 2: got off. And we mentioned the twelve different countries that
Speaker 2: these folks traveled to. They said two of the people
Speaker 2: they're not sure where they're from. How I don't know
Speaker 2: how they don't know their nationalities. But that was actually
Speaker 2: also said today.
Speaker 1: A lot the update we have gotten in the past
Speaker 1: twelve hours, I guess ropes. They have all been terrifying.
Speaker 1: I want to and we should ropes with this in
Speaker 1: some kind of context. Here they're telling us the risk
Speaker 1: to the general public is low, Are they not? They
Speaker 1: are okay, because I'm not sure why, because we're dealing
Speaker 1: with a strain that is passed from human to human
Speaker 1: and an incubation period that could go up to two months.
Speaker 1: But nothing to worry about, nothing to see here.
Speaker 2: No, they're claiming that you either need to have close
Speaker 2: intimate contact, as in you share a room or a
Speaker 2: bed with someone, or you share food with someone. They're
Speaker 2: claiming it has to be it doesn't spread the same
Speaker 2: way a lot of viruses spread. But you know, we
Speaker 2: learned a lot about viruses going through the coronavirus and
Speaker 2: the pandemic, and we learned that viruses mutate, and epidemiologists
Speaker 2: know this, so that I would think would be of
Speaker 2: a concern because this is a rare, little studied, known
Speaker 2: strain of the virus, the and the strain of the
Speaker 2: haunt of virus. How many epidemiologists and scientists are well
Speaker 2: versed in this very rare specific strain that was contained
Speaker 2: to one corner of the world, in like this remote
Speaker 2: area of Argentina. And now all these people have gone
Speaker 2: back to their home countries. And this speaks to our confusion.
Speaker 2: Yesterday when all of a sudden, right before we came
Speaker 2: on our podcast, we learned a Swiss man was in
Speaker 2: a Swiss hospital with a confirmed case of haunt of virus.
Speaker 2: And that is when questions first started being raised, how
Speaker 2: did he get to Switzerland.
Speaker 1: Because we had not heard about anybody getting off that
Speaker 1: boat except in particular this couple. That's all we knew
Speaker 1: at the time, So wrote that came a shock. Now
Speaker 1: you said, people started questioning and sorry, rah Samina is
Speaker 1: facetiming me as we're talking here, all right, So yes,
Speaker 1: I still have not like us as my ring tone.
Speaker 1: But Rose, that was the first And you said people
Speaker 1: started questioning. No, we started. We were in mid podcast.
Speaker 1: Wait wait a minute, wis.
Speaker 2: How do he can't get to Switzerland off a boat
Speaker 2: in Antarctica? It was so confusing. So yes, he was
Speaker 2: among those forty passengers who basically left. And at the
Speaker 2: time they knew a man died on board, but they
Speaker 2: didn't know what he died of. They didn't know how
Speaker 2: he died, and they certainly didn't know he had a deadly,
Speaker 2: potentially contagious virus when they all disembarked. And so he
Speaker 2: gets off and according to Swiss authorities, he was feeling
Speaker 2: ill ill, yes, but he didn't suspect anything. He gets
Speaker 2: an email from the cruise ship saying you might have
Speaker 2: been exposed. If you feel ill, you should go to
Speaker 2: the hospital, and that is when he went to the hospital.
Speaker 1: So he got an email. But now you have to
Speaker 1: wonder how many of those forty are checking their email.
Speaker 1: How many of those forty might be feeling a little ill.
Speaker 1: How many of those forty are still going to work?
Speaker 1: How many of those forty is still putting their kids
Speaker 1: to bed? How many of those for right, you go
Speaker 1: on and on and on, like this broke this. Well,
Speaker 1: we're trying to keep this in context and not be
Speaker 1: too alarmist and too scary. But this is robes. You
Speaker 1: remember hearing about a little virus in Wuhan and like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's way away from us. Next thing, you know, we
Speaker 1: can't leave the house. This is scary stuff with a
Speaker 1: virus we don't know a lot about that, we don't
Speaker 1: deal with a lot here and a strain that is
Speaker 1: essentially the holy shit strain of this virus.
Speaker 2: Yes, because it passes from human to human and it
Speaker 2: has a forty percent fatality rate. And when you look
Speaker 2: and see the numbers right now, we now know confirmed
Speaker 2: eight cases of haunted virus on that cruise ship and
Speaker 2: three of those passengers are Three of those folks who
Speaker 2: contracted the virus are dead. That is in line with
Speaker 2: that four forty percent fatality rate.
Speaker 1: Help me with the breakdown. I know the numbers are changing.
Speaker 1: Eight total that we're talking about three dead. Three were
Speaker 1: sick on the ship had to be evacuated. Were the
Speaker 1: other two?
Speaker 2: The other two one of them is in Switzerland in
Speaker 2: a hospital and one of them is in South Africa
Speaker 2: in a hospital.
Speaker 1: There is so a British.
Speaker 2: National in South Africa and a Swiss national in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: Okay, there it is. And the reminder here robes this
Speaker 1: cannot There is no cure if you will, there isn't
Speaker 1: even a specific treatment. It's a matter of essentially making
Speaker 1: somebody uncomfortable as comfortable as you can give them, giving
Speaker 1: them fluid. There's not much you can do is hope
Speaker 1: and wait they are strong enough to survive and invite
Speaker 1: this thing off.
Speaker 2: That's truly where we are on this virus. Yes, and
Speaker 2: I know that ventilators are used as a last ditch
Speaker 2: effort to try and and help someone get through the
Speaker 2: virus on their own. But literally, your body has to
Speaker 2: fight it. They can try to make you, yes, more comfortable,
Speaker 2: keep you hydrated, and try to keep the fluid out
Speaker 2: of your lungs, and that is what doctors try to
Speaker 2: do when you contract this disease. But here's the pointed
Speaker 2: out there is an up to eight week incubation period
Speaker 2: for this. So this is tough. If you think about
Speaker 2: the fact that the first passenger died on April eleventh,
Speaker 2: then on April twenty fourth, you got forty passengers leaving,
Speaker 2: one of whom collapses hours later in an airport and
Speaker 2: dies shortly thereafter.
Speaker 1: Rose. I still don't have a good handle, and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry if I'm putting you on the spot. We don't
Speaker 1: know yet. When are you contagious? Right? If you contract it,
Speaker 1: you don't actually start showing symptoms for a little while.
Speaker 1: When do you actually get contagious? Because the timeline you
Speaker 1: talk about is scary as hell. They believe this couple
Speaker 1: originally got it when they first took off from Argentina, right,
Speaker 1: so they got it. It's April first, So they get
Speaker 1: on the ship April first, he gets sick April six,
Speaker 1: He dies on April eleventh. They get off on April
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, but rose from April first until the twenty fourth. Yes,
Speaker 1: he died, but his wife is still on bar. They
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on. Didn't seem sick. They let
Speaker 1: people know on the ship. There's video of this. The
Speaker 1: guy you got off. Now the captain tells everybody, we've
Speaker 1: had a passenger die. But after that, everybody was still
Speaker 1: mingling on the ship as if nothing was a threat.
Speaker 2: Look, he was a seventy year old man.
Speaker 1: Look that's not that old.
Speaker 2: But it wouldn't be that shocking that he could have
Speaker 2: had a heart attack. He could have had you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of underlying conditions. So no one really thought
Speaker 2: anything of it, including his own wife, who obviously felt
Speaker 2: well enough, who was allowed and wasn't. There was no concern,
Speaker 2: there was no red flag rais, no eyebrows raised that
Speaker 2: maybe she could be also somehow sick as well. So
Speaker 2: she was allowed to get off the ship. She was
Speaker 2: allowed to get on a plane to follow her husband
Speaker 2: back home, but she never made it.
Speaker 1: Ro How sick would she have had to have been
Speaker 1: that in one flight she passes out ropes at the
Speaker 1: end of the flight. That had to be at her sickest.
Speaker 2: When you argue, and she's on a commercial airline, enclosed
Speaker 2: airspace with all those folks, and look, if it took her,
Speaker 2: let's just say, if it took her two weeks basically
Speaker 2: to exhibit signs. Anyone who's been on that plane, you
Speaker 2: know we're right around that mark, I guess four twenty
Speaker 2: four and trying to do the math. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: still some scary stuff.
Speaker 1: Because it could be two weeks, three weeks, four weeks,
Speaker 1: five weeks, they.
Speaker 2: Tell us it could be a while, and we don't
Speaker 2: know this Swiss passenger who now has tested positive, who's
Speaker 2: now in the hospital. Look, they don't really know.
Speaker 1: I've read.
Speaker 2: They're now trying to figure out how he got back home,
Speaker 2: the flights he took to get back. Every one of
Speaker 2: these people now to go back and try to find
Speaker 2: who they got into contact with and who they were
Speaker 2: enclosed shared airspace with. Because look, if you're exhibiting symptoms,
Speaker 2: I don't know how this virus spreads, but most virus
Speaker 2: spreads through fluids, through bodily fluids. So if you're coughing,
Speaker 2: if you're sneezing, if you're you know, any saliva gets anywhere,
Speaker 2: that would be the mode of transmission you would assume.
Speaker 2: So yet in a closed space, that ain't so great.
Speaker 1: But rome's we talk about the closed space. They believe
Speaker 1: it started with these two like the elderly couple, another
Speaker 1: six some kind hand away got sick. How did these
Speaker 1: two end up in close contact. Like you said, you
Speaker 1: have to spread. It's not like the flu, right, you
Speaker 1: can't just well excuse me, it's not just so aerosolized
Speaker 1: that you just a sneeze will do it, right.
Speaker 2: They they claim that it has to be close contact,
Speaker 2: close contact.
Speaker 1: Well, six other people some kind of way got in
Speaker 1: close contact with these two. I know, did those other
Speaker 1: six be in close contact with somebody else? And then
Speaker 1: though it just goes on. We don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know if the Swiss national who's now
Speaker 2: in the hospital, if he was on that same plane
Speaker 2: with the wife. We don't know if the British national
Speaker 2: who's now in Johannesburg in a hospital, if he was
Speaker 2: on that same plane. We don't have a lot of information.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what's so concerning right now. So
Speaker 2: when we come back, we're going to talk about because
Speaker 2: we have a whole other issue. This ship is now
Speaker 2: making its way toward towards the Canary Islands. The Canary
Speaker 2: Island folks don't want them to dock, and there is
Speaker 2: a political battle brewing within Spain as to what to
Speaker 2: do with these folks. And even if they're allowed to
Speaker 2: get off on the Canary Islands. What do they do
Speaker 2: with all these folks who have lots of countries to
Speaker 2: head back home to. We'll explain what the plan is
Speaker 2: when we come back and welcome back everyone to this
Speaker 2: episode of Amy and TJ, where there are just some
Speaker 2: major developments with this Haunt of Virus cruise ship scare
Speaker 2: because now we have dozens of people scattered all around
Speaker 2: the world who have possibly been exposed to hauntavirus, and
Speaker 2: now local authorities in at least twelve different countries, including
Speaker 2: the United States, are scrambling to try and contact trace
Speaker 2: these individuals who they've come into contact with, isolate them
Speaker 2: and monitor them. And that's where we are while this
Speaker 2: ship is still on the move. It left Cape ver day,
Speaker 2: or at least the waters off of Cape Verde, the
Speaker 2: western tip of Africa, Wednesday afternoon. They are heading north
Speaker 2: towards the Canary Islands over local objections because the Canary
Speaker 2: Island leaders say we don't want them here, and the
Speaker 2: Spanish health minister said they're going to go regardless, and
Speaker 2: he actually said we're not going to get into the
Speaker 2: political controversy. I believe it's not the time, but still
Speaker 2: this is going to come to a point where they're
Speaker 2: going to have to figure out what to do in
Speaker 2: three days or so when this ship is there at
Speaker 2: the Canary Islands, they're set right now to begin evacuations
Speaker 2: of the passengers who are still on board as early
Speaker 2: as Monday.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, so at the Canary Islands. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: but right now Spain is saying sure you can knock there.
Speaker 1: The Canary Islands leaders are saying, ah, exactly right, So
Speaker 1: who has I soon? The Spanish leaders are the ones
Speaker 1: who have say.
Speaker 2: They do have say over the ports, they do have
Speaker 2: say over what they can basically go above the heads
Speaker 2: of local leaders. But still, if you have the local community,
Speaker 2: the local government there vehemently opposing you docking, it's just
Speaker 2: a little concerning what may actually happen. So there's a
Speaker 2: meeting apparently that's going on today to discuss the evacuation
Speaker 2: process and how you get these people who are going
Speaker 2: to have to be quarantined ultimately to their third countries,
Speaker 2: basically anywhere other than Spain or the Netherlands. And look,
Speaker 2: we know what Spaniards plan to do. There are fourteen
Speaker 2: Spanish passengers aboard that board right now. They're saying they're
Speaker 2: going to put them in a military hospital in Madrid, quarantined,
Speaker 2: isolated for a forty five day incubation period. That's the
Speaker 2: plan for the Spanish passengers. But what do we do
Speaker 2: with the other passengers who are from all these other countries?
Speaker 2: Are they just isn't going to become treat a country
Speaker 2: to decide what to do. But we've got Americans who
Speaker 2: have returned home and have been home for a while
Speaker 2: because they were among those forty who left the ship
Speaker 2: two weeks after that dutch Man died. We have them
Speaker 2: in Georgia, California, and Arizona. That's what we know right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, and now you told me earlier. A lot of
Speaker 1: these folks are going back to their home countries. A
Speaker 1: lot of them are being monitored. They know where they
Speaker 1: are where. There are some right now who are still
Speaker 1: out there saying in the wind, if you will, that
Speaker 1: might not know, they need to be concerned. And well,
Speaker 1: at this point, everybody, I think they probably know now.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, do you want to tell anyone like, hmmm,
Speaker 2: do I really think about this though? If you're like,
Speaker 2: I feel fine, this is ridiculous. They say the risk
Speaker 2: is low. You're now just hoping that the people who
Speaker 2: were on board will voluntarily isolate for forty five days.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is not COVID, now, excuse me, it's not.
Speaker 1: It is similar to COVID in that we don't know
Speaker 1: a whole lot about it, right, A lot of us
Speaker 1: are getting caught up. It's not a brand new thing
Speaker 1: like COVID was. But what was the death rate for COVID?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is forty percent.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is not something to mess around with. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll just go to work because I feel fine. This
Speaker 1: is a responsibility. You could get somebody killed. Yes, let's hope.
Speaker 2: So we know two residents in the state of Georgia
Speaker 2: who were on that ship are in good health and
Speaker 2: showing no signs of infection, according to Georgia authorities. In Arizona,
Speaker 2: they say they are monitoring one resident who was, yes,
Speaker 2: a passenger on board the ship and is not symptomatic.
Speaker 2: In California, it's a little unclear. We got the word
Speaker 2: that this is how they phrased it. The Department of
Speaker 2: Public Health has been notified by the CDC that California
Speaker 2: residents plural have been on the ship, but we have
Speaker 2: no info that they are ill or infected. That didn't
Speaker 2: seem like a good enough statement. Again, all of this
Speaker 2: is just coming to light, so there is some scrambling
Speaker 2: going on, but it felt really generic. The California statement,
Speaker 2: what rose?
Speaker 1: How long did they tell us we had to quarantine
Speaker 1: to be safe with COVID? It was fourteen days? Fourteen
Speaker 1: days to be in the clear. Yes, are the numbers
Speaker 1: all over the place. How long do you need to
Speaker 1: be in the clear for this?
Speaker 2: Yes, it was so obviously Spain says they're going with
Speaker 2: forty five days. We've heard some folks say it's eight weeks,
Speaker 2: so sixty days it's but I haven't heard anything less
Speaker 2: than forty five days.
Speaker 1: To think, a lot of us and a lot of
Speaker 1: people listening now had at some point did a quarantine
Speaker 1: with code. Oh yes, I had to. I had a
Speaker 1: couple of Okay, now, think about doing that for a month
Speaker 1: and a half or two months.
Speaker 2: That's my point. People are unwilling to check out or
Speaker 2: opt out of life or contact with anyone for that long.
Speaker 2: So you're asking all of these people to self isolate
Speaker 2: and granted, obviously, once your local municipality knows that you
Speaker 2: were on that show, they're going to monitor you for
Speaker 2: obvious reasons. But this is scary as hell, and I
Speaker 2: guess it just feels like it feels like we kind
Speaker 2: of got hit with this. And why wouldn't we have
Speaker 2: known sooner? Why would the ship not have put out
Speaker 2: this alert sooner? And granted they were clearly sending emails
Speaker 2: to people, but they weren't letting the rest of us
Speaker 2: know that this was actually or this had happened, that
Speaker 2: this many passengers had gotten off the boat.
Speaker 1: And again want to leave room there for maybe they
Speaker 1: were getting caught up, maybe they were understanding, maybe they
Speaker 1: were finding out what was going on. But Robes, this
Speaker 1: at least this company was aware as early as August sixth, maybe,
Speaker 1: but definitely excuse me, April right April, yes, April eleventh,
Speaker 1: when he died. This became for the company a big deal.
Speaker 1: It was reported they were aware of it. And again Robes,
Speaker 1: did they for two weeks just not think there was
Speaker 1: anything to worry about it? That's possible. So when those
Speaker 1: folks got off on April twenty fourth, Robes, everybody's looking
Speaker 1: like there's nothing to worry about. We have okay, Yes,
Speaker 1: life is normal. They never thought about this dead guy
Speaker 1: again once they got off the ship, right and not.
Speaker 2: Probably oh, they just probably thought he died of natural causes.
Speaker 1: Then people start getting sick, and I guess you look
Speaker 1: into it more. But man robes, they keep telling us
Speaker 1: the risk is low. I don't want us to be
Speaker 1: that thing where we're soundings. I'm alarmed, but it's just
Speaker 1: this is terrifying to a certain degree of virus that
Speaker 1: we're not familiar with, that kills forty percent of the
Speaker 1: people that infects, and it's moving from human to human,
Speaker 1: and we don't know where many of the humans are
Speaker 1: who were on that ship. Damn ropes.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's alarmist at all to be concerned.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's alarmist at all to be vigilant.
Speaker 2: And this is a case in which you want people,
Speaker 2: or at least you hope that your health officials would,
Speaker 2: out of an abundance of caution, do everything they can
Speaker 2: to make sure that no other person dies this virus.
Speaker 1: Period. Again, they keep telling us it's hard for it
Speaker 1: to move from human to human. It's difficult, it takes
Speaker 1: prolonged contact. Even they say, I hear that, I hear
Speaker 1: what you're saying, but there are eight people. Now you're
Speaker 1: telling me who got sick. That's a lot of human
Speaker 1: and human contact ropes on a ship. I guess it's
Speaker 1: close proximity on a ship.
Speaker 2: Yes, how could it not be. I've been on plenty
Speaker 2: of cruise ships.
Speaker 1: And so is a plane. Yes, yes, And they say
Speaker 1: nothing to worry Else wants to say nothing to worry about.
Speaker 2: But bros, you even think about what about the uber
Speaker 2: driver who maybe picked up the passenger from the airport?
Speaker 2: Oh god, you know, you just think about all the
Speaker 2: people that you come in contact with, and so this
Speaker 2: is deeply, deeply concerning. We're going to obviously keep our
Speaker 2: eye on this developing story because there is so much
Speaker 2: more to come, especially when that cruise ship reaches the
Speaker 2: Canary Islands, so we will be on top of it all.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, we appreciate you listening to us.
Speaker 2: As always, I'm Amy Robock alongside TJ. Holmes.
Speaker 1: Will talk to you soon.