One person from NYC, one person from Orange County, one person from Westchester County and two individuals from our sister state of New Jersey are all being monitored for hantavirus for 42 days in the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha Nebraska. Take a look on a map, and our county is surrounded.
The three New Yorkers in quarantine were passengers of the 147 person cruise ship the MV Hondius, on which three individuals have died as a result of hantavirus. While hantavirus typically does not spread from person to person, the strain that officials are seeing is known as the Andes virus and is the only strain known to spread person-to-person. This strain causes severe respiratory disease and is spread by direct physical contact, time spent close to the infected individual, and being exposed to the infected individual’s bodily fluids. At this time, there are 11 reported cases of the virus…