Eighteen cruise ship passengers who have spent nearly three weeks in federal quarantine after potential exposure to the hantavirus may be allowed to leave on Monday, but only if their state governments agree to monitor them 24/7 for another three weeks, according to some passengers and instructions from the federal authorities to local health officials.
That approach would exceed the typical protocols used to successfully contain previous virus outbreaks, and could prevent at least two of the passengers quarantined in Nebraska — New York residents — from departing, according to their lawyer.
“Apparently the C.D.C. wants some kind of local guard or person to watch over the individual to ensure that they don’t leave their home,” said Steven Hyman, the lawyer representing the two passengers, citing information provided by his clients. If that doesn’t happen, his clients told him they would be required to stay in Nebraska for the full 42-day potential incubation period.
Neither federal health officials nor the New York State Health Department replied to requests for comment on the release conditions. It remains unclear how many of the passengers may decide to leave on Monday, though at least one said she plans to go to Florida.
The passengers who have been housed in the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center were aboard a cruise ship that became the center of a global hantavirus outbreak this month. After being repatriated from the Canary Islands on May 11, they have been housed in federally funded facilities for observation, though none appear to have the disease.
The restrictions placed on them by the Trump administration have far exceeded those that U.S. health officials used to successfully contain a 2018 hantavirus outbreak. At least two passengers were issued federal orders by Jay Bhattacharya, the interim director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to remain at the quarantine center in Omaha through at least Sunday, the end of the 21-day period during which people are most likely to develop hantavirus symptoms.
The orders came after the two had made plans to return to their home states to self-isolate, as officials had originally suggested they could do after initial testing. It came as a surprise to many public health experts, who said the administration’s protocols ran counter to the philosophy of Dr. Bhattacharya and the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who have advocated medical freedom and more limited restrictions for disease containment.
Other Americans who departed the cruise before the outbreak was detected, or who were in close contact with a passenger who later died, have been allowed to quarantine at home. And during the 2018 outbreak of the same type of hantavirus, dozens of people who might have been exposed were allowed to stay at home and monitor themselves for potential symptoms for 42 days. None became ill.
Mr. Hyman, the lawyer, said that the two New York residents he represents were asymptomatic and willing to follow federal home quarantine guidelines. “What is most disturbing here is that there is no transparency, or written conditions, that one would expect in a situation like this,” he said.
Round-the-clock monitoring of people who may have been exposed to hantavirus is “not standard at all,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist and professor with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
She added that allowing people to quarantine at home with check-ins from health workers would be reasonable to contain a pathogen like the hantavirus. “But going a step further, to 24/7 on-site monitoring — I’ve never heard of that, and I don’t think it’s needful,” she said.
Hantavirus is a rare family of viruses carried by rodents. The World Health Organization has identified the Andes subtype, which can be transmitted between people who have had close contact, as the one that affected the cruise passengers.
The ship on which the outbreak emerged, the Dutch-registered MV Hondius, began its journey in Argentina in early April. Three passengers later died from the virus, and several others became ill or tested positive. So far, according to the C.D.C., no cases of Andes virus have been confirmed in the United States as a result of the outbreak.
The National Quarantine Unit in Omaha has housed 16 passengers in single-occupancy rooms designed to prevent disease spread since May 11. Two more began their quarantines in Atlanta, but have since joined the others in Nebraska, making a total of 18.
At least seven other Americans who departed the cruise ship earlier and took commercial flights back to the United States have mostly been monitored at home, with daily check-ins from local health workers, either virtually or in person.
There appeared to be no clear explanation for the divergent protocol for the 18 people in Omaha, Dr. Rivers said. “There seem to be different rules, or different handling, of the passengers who had previously disembarked, compared to the passengers who were made to stay at the National Quarantine Unit,” she said.
Jacey Fortin covers a wide range of subjects for The Times, including extreme weather, court cases and state politics across the country.
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