State trooper guards and daily fever checks: Some hantavirus cruise passengers go home

Five of the 18 U.S. cruise ship passengers quarantined in Nebraska went home Monday, halfway through their quarantine after being exposed to hantavirus aboard the MV Hondius , a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson said.

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The five passengers were permitted to leave under the condition that they stay home — no quick runs for takeout or trips to the grocery store — for the second half of the virus’s full 42-day quarantine period, set to end on June 22.

The CDC said all of the passengers who are asymptomatic and haven’t tested positive for the Andes hantavirus were given the option to leave Monday. Those who chose to stay can finish their 42-day quarantine at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska.

States are required to station law enforcement or public health employees outside the quarantined passengers’ homes for surveillance, the CDC said.

New York and California have agreed to accept returning passengers, according to their departments of health. Arizona and Oregon have also agreed to accept passengers, the CDC said.

“They came to get me in my room at 6 a.m.,” one passenger, a 30-year-old New York resident who did not want to be identified because he feared public backlash, said Monday. The passenger, who said he remains asymptomatic, was given a KN95 mask and driven directly to a private plane.

“There were three medical staff on board with me,” the man said. Those health care workers took his blood pressure throughout the flight. Upon arrival, he said, a motorcade of emergency vehicles escorted him home.