▶ Watch Video: New Yorker quarantined after hantavirus cruise speaks out
A New York native is among 16 American passengers who are quarantining in Nebraska after being on the cruise ship that is at the center of the deadly hantavirus outbreak.
Jake Rosmarin is one of three New Yorkers who were on the M/V Hondius. Rosmarin, originally from Monroe, New York, described his time so far at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s National Quarantine Unit.
“I know I’m in the best care possible, and I’m just trying to stay positive,” he told CBS News New York’s Mary Calvi in an interview Wednesday.
There have been 11 confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus so far, including three deaths, since the outbreak began.
Seventeen Americans and one British dual citizen were flown to the U.S. Monday. Of the 18, one tested “mildly PCR positive” for the Andes strain of the hantavirus, and another began showing symptoms, U.S. health officials said Sunday.
Sixteen of the Americans, including the one who tested positive, were taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Fifteen of those, including Rosmarin, were placed in single-occupancy rooms at the medical center’s National Quarantine Unit. The person who tested positive for the Andes strain was initially placed in the center’s biocontainment unit, but was medically cleared Wednesday to be moved to the quarantine unit.
“I feel well,” Rosmarin said. “I have no symptoms, and I’m just ready to cope with the next 40 days left here in quarantine.”
Meanwhile, the passenger who showed symptoms, along with the person they were traveling with, were flown to Atlanta for treatment and monitoring at a biocontainment facility at Emory University Hospital.
What the day-to-day is like in quarantine
In quarantine, Rosmarin said he gets a daily temperature check and regular blood work done. There’s also a stationary bike inside his room for exercise. He also has Wi-Fi and a bathroom. He said he has a window, but he keeps it closed because “there are people outside, so I don’t need them looking in my room.”
Michael Wadman, the medical director of National Quarantine Unit, told reporters that there is no intermingling between passengers and no visitors, aside from medical staff.
Rosmarin described his room as “much more spacious than the ship.”
“We don’t really have much going on during the day…For the most part, we just get to kind of, you know, relax and be comfortable in here,” he added.
Rosmarin indicated, though, that he hasn’t been given regular updates from the outside world as to the status of his fellow passengers.
“I’m not really sure of anything that goes on outside of this room,” he said.
“It was a really scary time”
Rosmarin said the trip was “unbelievable” until the final 24 to 48 hours before they were initially slated to disembark. That is when the Hondius passengers learned there had been a confirmed case of hantavirus, he said.
“Everything just went downhill,” Rosmarin explained. “…It was that week following before we could get off the ship and repatriated by the United States, that was a really scary time, specifically for me,” he said.
Rosmarin said it was frightening that no government wanted the ship to disembark at their ports due to the virus. Spain finally agreed to dock the ship in the Canary Islands. There were nearly 150 people from 15 countries aboard the ship when the evacuations began Sunday. The evacuees were placed on repatriation flights to their respective countries, with the U.S. passengers arriving in Omaha, Nebraska, on Monday. A skeleton crew remained behind to sail the Dutch-flagged Hondius to Holland.
Once-in-a-lifetime trip
Rosmarin described the trip as an expedition journey, and said the passengers weren’t on a typical cruise. Because it was a smaller group, all the passengers knew each other.
He said some of their destinations included South Georgia Island, where they saw the largest king penguin colony in the world, and Tristan da Cunha.
“We got to swim in the middle of the ocean, not far from the equator, where the ocean was over 15,000 feet deep,” he said. “Overall, I mean it was a really, really unbelievable experience.”