CDC Official Dusts Off Familiar ‘Six Feet’ Playbook Regarding Hantavirus
So far, 11 passengers have tested positive for Andes strain, with 3 in critical condition. An expert asserts that assurances of low risk to general public is “calm-mongering”.
In my last report on the hantavirus, I noted that 5 Americans who were not aboard the MV Hondius were being monitored for hantavirus exposure symptoms.
It appears now that a retired Bend doctor who helped care for passengers aboard the Durch cruise ship hit by the outbreak has now tested positive for the virus.
Fortunately for him, the symptoms are merely “strange but manageable.”
Stephen Kornfeld told CNN on May 12 he was being monitored inside a biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, though he was not showing symptoms.
The Oregon doctor said in the interview that the experience has been strange but manageable as he stays connected with family and friends through his phone while doctors continue monitoring his condition.
Kornfeld said he briefly developed flu-like symptoms while treating sick passengers aboard the MV Hondius, but the illness quickly passed.
Meanwhile, a French woman is the third passenger to become critically ill with the Andes strain of hantavirus (the only one capable of human-to-human transmission).
Health officials around the world are monitoring disembarked travelers from the ship and any of their close contacts for symptoms of the virus. The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it had identified eleven cases of hantavirus, three in people who had died. It said nine of the cases were confirmed to be hantavirus and that two more were “probable.”
Officials at a briefing on Wednesday in Stockholm by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said that the patient in France was one of three people to be critically ill. Gianfranco Spiteri, an epidemic expert at the agency, said the woman did not have symptoms when she left the ship.
Xavier Lescure, an infectious disease specialist at Bichat Hospital in Paris, where the woman is being treated, had previously said that she had severe symptoms and was breathing with the help of an artificial lung.
Meanwhile, 18 Americans who were aboard the ship are now enjoying an extended 42-day vacation… in federal quarantine.
All 18 U.S. passengers who were on board the MV Hondius cruise ship remain in federal quarantine as doctors and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figure out when they can safely go home.
At a briefing Wednesday, the CDC said it is encouraging the passengers to stay in the quarantine until the end of the 42-day incubation period, which started on May 11, the day they disembarked from the cruise ship.
The CDC’s Dr. David Fitter, incident manager for the agency’s hantavirus response, said they’re still in the process of interviewing each of the passengers to determine how closely they were exposed to the Andes hantavirus while on board the cruise ship. That process is expected to last at least through Thursday.
“Currently, there are no state or federal quarantine orders that have been drawn,” Fitter said. “The goal is to work with them for the best possible place for them.”
While I suspect that there will be no new cases in the next 42 days, and I hope all those infected recover, it is apparent that not every public health official has picked up on the fact that the public is wary of their analysis.
For example, Brendan Jackson, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tossed out the “6 feet” precautions.
“We talking about exposure specifically to bodily fluids. And that could include things like saliva.
So, if you are sharing eating utensils..kissing, touching…those sorts of things.
It can also mean just being really, really close to that person for a fairly long period of time. So, we’re calling that ‘six feet’. At least six feet for a cumulative number of 15 minutes.
Narrative: '6 feet' mentioned again and it's more infectious than you think… Just passing someone and saying hello can lead to the spread of Hantavirus! 😂
Legacy media pushing the Hantavirus narrative ! pic.twitter.com/tp5z4TjXxm— Andrew Bridgen (@ABridgen) May 13, 2026
Meanwhile, Dr. David Berger, an Australian physician who is a former ship’s doctor for the same operator as the MV Hondius, asserts that assurances of a low risk to the general public are “calm mongering.”
“Well, maybe they are, but you’ve got a condition with an incubation period that appears to be up to six to eight weeks,” Berger said, noting that any control measures are going to look effective in the first few days of a hantavirus outbreak because it takes so long to show symptoms.
“When you’ve known about this situation for four or five days, you can’t then go and say, ‘Oh, yes, all the measures are effective.’ … Any informed observer looks at that and goes, ‘Well, you’re just bullshitting, because you can’t absolutely say that,’ ” he added.
Berger cites this as an example of what he and others have called “calm-mongering.”
CNN introduced a new term, “Calm-Mongering.”#CNN #Hantavirüs #hantavirus #WHO pic.twitter.com/O3ZDDWx1zA
— Grant Myler (@Grant_EOD) May 13, 2026
If this episode proves anything, it’s that the real contagion may be institutional overconfidence colliding with public skepticism.
Between recycled “six feet” talking points, cautiously optimistic projections, and critics calling out “calm-mongering,” officials are walking a credibility tightrope they themselves frayed during COVID.
The good news is that cases remain limited and, so far, manageable. The next 42 days will test not just viral containment and media interest levels, but whether public health authorities can communicate real risk without sounding needlessly alarmist.
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Comments
Of one thing I am absolutely certain: Mother Nature wants you dead; to date, she has never failed.
So, forget about “experts” who insist that there’s a magical distance that a virus will refuse to breach and other such 🐎 💩 that they spew.
Go about your life. Wash your hands often. Don’t hang around South American dumps. And other such common sense precautions.
Don’t kiss people who died of hemorrhagic disease.
Don’t “pox” monkeys.
Don’t eat brains.
Don’t breathe in rat sh**.
Don’t play with feces.
Am I missing any biggies?
Don’t marry a blue haired AWFL?
Distancing and masks are part of a standard occupational protocol for health care workers dealing with an airborne virus.
The thing is, hantavirus is only technically airborne in a critical concentration for a short time, and that’s when inhaled from a large viral load like rodent excrement. Infected humans don’t shed a large viral load in aerosols of the breath (unlike flu). Even in the Andes strain, the H2H transmission rate is low.
The ‘6 foot Rule” has no basis in science. As for masks, depends on the fomite. For Covid, water vapor with virus wasn’t stopped by the regular masks. In isolation of TB, full respirators are often needed as masks can’t hack it.
If this was risky/dangerous enough to even think about involving Rona Mania era protocols then the ‘authorities’ should have contained the white universe of people potentially exposed within the dang cruise ship with a quarantine. Public health bureaucrats gotta decide quick, fast and in a hurry, often with incomplete information very early into a ‘situation’ what the protective posture is gonna be. Sucks to be them, but that’s why they get well above average salaries and very good benefit packages to serve in their chosen field of endeavor. If they can’t/won’t make tough decisions even very unpopular decisions that upset folks on a single cruise ship, that brings diplomatic protest from the multiple gov’ts involved ….they should go.dig ditches. No excuse for any public health official to be envisioning any protocols on the general public when they had the opportunity to lock down the entire population of the cruise ship with a quarantine in place.
contained the white universe of people
“Whole universe”? Because that typo just comes out weird.
Yeah ‘whole’. My adolescent dogs were zooming after dinner while I was thumb typing it out on my kindle jumping and telling me the cat caught a vole. They we’re upset they didn’t get to assist his hunting in my little orchard.
Of course, one of the problems with that is the sheer quantity of people on a cruise ship nowadays. One, it raises the impact of putting the whole ship in quarantine – a lot more people affected. Second, I think it becomes a population issue in terms of transmission and spread. It will take a lot longer for the virus to run its course when it can spread through so many people.
Those bits are not absolutes and can be overcome. But it looms much larger to those making the decision.
Parking the cruise ship way off the coast does limit spread.
And … the etymology of the word “quarantine”, itself:
Sucks to be them. Quarantine of ships with an outbreak of disease is hardly a new concept. Getting jammed up in a quarantine due to voluntary choices to venture to areas of the world where you or your fellow passengers/crew are not only exposed but contract some disease is one of the consequences accepted when you do it.
Here we go again, you can tell there’s an election to steal
And don’t forget your masks. I even remember the instructions on how to make one from a napkin if necessary. It will save your life. But you can take if off when your sitting down to eat. The virus understands it would be irrational never to remove your face diaper,
Only a complete retard would take people OFF of a ship at sea and transport them halfway around the world in order to put them into quarantine. It does not get more retarded than that.
I’m rather baffled as the people were already in quarantine. They were on a friggen ship at sea?
Let’s not let the panicans go off the deep end for all of us. First of all, that doctor in Australia doesn’t know what he is talking about. The most in depth study to date indicates a 40 day max incubation period and no transmission until symptoms manifest. It also shows that in 4 different outbreaks 2 of the care facilities showed no transmission to healthcare workers and 2 did so it was 50/50. Primary transmission is through expelled water particles from coughing or sneezing so an N95 mask will contain it. In other words, don’t get your panties in a bunch.
Drip by drip until people are afraid and submissive.
CDC trying to reclaim the (tyrannical) glory days of Chi-Flu.
The news two weeks from now:
“Today, both Pfizer and Moderna announced new vaccines designed to make recipients immune to the hantavirus. So far, both remain untested.
“The White House has announced Project Lightning Speed II, bypassing testing to get the vaccines to the general public as soon as possible. All branches of the military have announced that the vaccines will be mandatory, as have most school districts..
“The CDC has announced six foot separation as a preventative measure. Walmart, Kroger, and Safeway/Albertson’s have announced a return to one-way grocery aisles.
“As part of federal policy, small businesses must shut down or greatly restrict hours, but in the name of national security, major chains will remain open.”
/What did I miss?
For CDC panic porn dealers? Digging 1-2 ft is enough to keep the coyotes and vultures from dragging them into the road.
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