90-Second Read: Here's the CDC's plan as Hantavirus-hit cruise starts evacuation process

A cruise ship with over 140 passengers on board, including more than a dozen Americans, is being evacuated after a Hantavirus outbreak that has resulted in three deaths. A cruise ship carrying more than 140 passengers, including over a dozen Americans, started evacuations on Sunday following a Hantavirus outbreak that has claimed three lives so far. No one on board is currently showing symptoms, but five passengers who previously left the ship have been infected with Hantavirus. Passengers wearing protective gear started disembarking in small boats after the cruise ship anchored off Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands. Hantavirus is not set up to cause a pandemic the way that COVID was, at this point, and there's nothing to suggest that it is on the way to doing that," former CDC.

Still, Frieden said that the CDC's response has been too slow, from the dispatching of disease investigators to health alerts to doctors. The World Health Organization has been out front on the Hantavirus response. The New York Times reported that the CDC set up a team to respond to the outbreak this past Tuesday, or nearly a month after the first patient had died. Authorities said there would be no contact with the local population. Those departing were told to leave behind their luggage and only take essential items.

The CDC says that the risk to the American public remains "extremely low" at this time. We have left the World Health Organization, and we are vulnerable to threats because we don't have these basic defenses. It made the assessment that informed the public that the outbreak was not a pandemic threat. Government is deeply committed to the health and safety of its citizens. For decades, the CDC partnered with the WHO in situations like this and spearheaded international investigations.

One such alert was released on Friday, but the concerns follow sweeping staff cuts under the Trump administration. We, in this country and around the world, are much less safe because the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been hollowed out.