An American woman who may have been exposed to hantavirus aboard a cruise ship is now being held under a federal quarantine order in Omaha, Nebraska, despite testing negative and reporting no symptoms.
Angela Perryman, 47, was transferred to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center after potential exposure on the MV Hondius and initially expected only a brief stay. According to Fox News, she told The New York Times that on Monday she was served with a federal order requiring her to remain in isolation for at least two additional weeks, extending her confinement through May 31 21 days after her arrival.
The order warns that Perryman must stay in the secure medical facility and that any attempt to leave could trigger intervention by law enforcement, she recounted. "They wont let us isolate at home," Perryman, who resides in Ecuador but maintains a home in South Florida, told the outlet. "Were being kept in a secured facility and threatened if we try to leave."
Perryman said she has already tested negative for hantavirus and has not developed any symptoms associated with the disease. Her only known contact, she explained, was a brief conversation with a fellow passenger who later died from the infection, a tragic outcome now driving an expansive federal response.
The federal quarantine order, which Perryman shared with the Times, asserts that her release to travel could "constitute a probable source of infection to other people" if she were to move between states. After receiving a medical review within 72 hours of her detention, she was informed that she has the right to appeal the order, and she told the Times that she intends to pursue legal action, raising civil-liberties concerns that echo the excesses many Americans remember from the COVID era.
The National Quarantine Unit, where Perryman is being held, consists of 20 single-occupancy rooms equipped with negative air pressure systems and private bathrooms, as described on the University of Nebraska Medical Centers Global Center for Health Security website. The facility also offers exercise equipment and Wi-Fi, amenities that do little to change the fact that healthy Americans are again being confined by federal decree.
The quarantine directive issued under federal public health authority was reportedly approved by Jay Bhattacharya, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fox News Digital has requested comment from the CDC, which has faced growing skepticism from conservatives over its expansive interpretation of public health powers since 2020.
Including Perryman, 18 American passengers from the MV Hondius have been monitored at the Omaha unit since last week as part of the governments response to the outbreak. Another seven passengers who disembarked earlier and returned home before the outbreak was identified are being monitored by their state and local health departments, according to the CDC, underscoring how quickly federal and state agencies can mobilize surveillance when they choose.
"The reason theyre watching these passengers so carefully is that the incubation period can be very long up to six weeks and when symptoms hit, patients can deteriorate very rapidly," Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said on a recent episode of "The Faulkner Focus." "This is not something that spreads easily like COVID, but because the Andes strain has rare person-to-person transmission, public health officials are being extremely cautious," he added, highlighting the tension between prudent vigilance and overreach.
At least three people linked to the MV Hondius outbreak have died, and additional passengers have fallen ill, according to the World Health Organization. "This is not something that spreads easily like COVID, but because the Andes strain has rare person-to-person transmission, public health officials are being extremely cautious," Siegel reiterated, a reminder that the risk, while serious, is not on the scale of a mass respiratory pandemic.
The last time Washington imposed a large-scale federal quarantine was in January 2020, when nearly 200 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, were forced to isolate for two weeks at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, per the CDC. "Typically, we dont hold people against their will unless there is no alternative," Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the pandemic center at Brown Universitys School of Public Health, told The Times, a standard many Americans now fear is being quietly rewritten as unelected health officials again assert sweeping control over individual movement and liberty.
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