90-Second Read: Hantavirus Cruise Passengers Being Surveilled at Home Around the Clock

Passengers who returned from the cruise ship in April, or who were on a flight with an infected person, have been monitored by public health workers at home. As for the Hantavirus outbreak, all 18 passengers served the first 21 days of their monitoring in Nebraska at the facility's National Quarantine Unit -- with two of them receiving quarantine orders to do so. A total of 13 cases, including three deaths, have been tied to the Hantavirus outbreak. At least some of them have the round-the-clock monitoring demanded by federal officials.

A spokesperson for Oregon's state health department also confirmed that there is "24/7 monitoring in place" in order to "comply with federal requirements." Arizona and California did not return a request for comment as of press time. A total of 13 passengers will remain at the facility to serve out those final 3 weeks of monitoring, as they were strongly encouraged to do, according to a press release from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Among passengers who returned home earlier, many had their last point of contact around April 24, which means their 42-day monitoring period is nearing an end. Officials planned to build a quarantine and treatment facility in Kenya before facing pushback.

Experts have said the constant surveillance exceeds typical public health protocols. There have been no reports of 24/7 surveillance for those people. Similarly, federal officials have also been taking an unusually stringent approach to managing American healthcare workers exposed to or infected with Ebola in an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Policies that deny or limit access to the very systems the United States has spent years building and maintaining undermine that commitment." The policy also risks undermining outbreak response by "discouraging qualified personnel from deploying to the affected regions.

They do so with the expectation that, should they become ill, they will have access to the highest standard of care available. Experts said individuals with possible exposure should be monitored for 42 days, which is thought to be near the upper limit of the virus's incubation period.