Laurel Bristow

And then person-to-person spread, we don't know a ton about that yet.

I think this outbreak in particular is going to teach us a lot.

There have been outbreaks in Argentina before that were limited person-to-person spread.

So I can't really say for sure, but it does appear that this spreads, you know.

Similar to an influenza, but less so.

It seems like you do need fairly close contact or to be in a room that has no ventilation with someone who is sick for a significant period of time.

Yeah, if you want to find a silver lining for it, it's that this is going to allow us to learn a lot more about how this particular type of hantavirus spreads, which will help us in the future.

I am honestly really not concerned about there being significant onward spread of this disease.

I mean, I think it's a small number of people.

They are, you know, acutely aware of the severity of the situation.

They have been stuck on this boat, probably reading headlines about them and stories and posts about people saying keep them on the boat forever.

I think that is a pretty good deterrent for them to not do anything too crazy to be the villain or, you know, the potential cause of an outbreak, which, again, I don't think will happen just from the way this virus functions.

But they're also there are they are being taken care of by professionals.

They're going to be monitored by professionals and people don't like to think about it.

But this sort of stuff is not as uncommon as you think.

You know, I worked for the San Francisco Department of Public Health when there was an Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

And we monitored people who had been there caring for patients when they came home, you know, and they got to quarantine in their homes.

And we called them to check on their symptoms and make sure everything was good until they were out of that incubation period.

So this is something that does happen behind the scenes.

You're just getting a lot more information about it because it is such a strange situation for hantavirus to be on a cruise ship.