When Jake Rosmarin boarded the MV Hondius, he happily posted on social media that the ship would be his home for 35 days as he traveled across the South Atlantic.
He is now one of 18 Americans being monitored in specialized health care facilities designed to treat people with serious infectious diseases after three people died and others fell ill due to a Hantavirus outbreak on the ship.
Rosmarin, 30, said he expects to spend 42 days in the national quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
There are also fourteen other American passengers from the ship. There is another person who has tested positive for the virus in a biocontainment unit in Nebraska. Two are being monitored in the serious infectious disease unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Public health officials said the risk of the virus spreading from passengers to the general public is very low, and healthy people are being isolated as a precaution.
Rosmarin, a content creator and photographer from Boston, told The Associated Press that he intends to make the most of his isolation.
His room is like a small hotel suite. He has a closet, smart TV, bathroom, mini fridge, bed, chair and stationary bike. He has windows, but keeps the curtains closed from peer media.
“It’s a very beautiful room,” said Rosmarin. “I’ve already ordered a new mattress pad and pillows. I think, for now, my plan is to take it one day at a time and that’s the best I can do.”
On Tuesday, he got a special treat that he posted on social media.
Nurses at the facility brought him iced horchata with oat milk and cold vanilla foam. “This is all I need right now. Wow!” Rosmarine said into the camera.
Hantavirus is usually spread from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people. but Andes virus The virus detected on cruise ships may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually appear between one and eight weeks after exposure.
“I never got sick,” Rosmarin said Tuesday.
Eleven people Those on board the MV Hondius have fallen ill, with at least nine confirmed cases. Three people died on the flight, including A Dutch couple Which health officials believe were the first to be exposed to the virus while visiting South America.
The last remaining passengers on the ship I went down on Monday They took flights to more than 20 countries to enter quarantine.
Omaha’s quarantine and biocontainment units are specialized facilities set up to monitor people exposed to serious illness. The biocontainment unit is used to treat people with highly contagious diseases.
Except for doctors, who wear full personal protective equipment including gowns and masks when they come to his room, Rosmarin cannot receive visitors. Most nurses don’t even come to his room when it’s time to eat.
“I open the door wearing a mask, and they put the food towards me, and I hold it on the tray,” he said.
Once people started getting sick on board, passengers were also advised to stay in their cabins as much as possible.
“I would leave the cabin for about 15 minutes every day to refill water, get fresh air and eat food for breakfast and lunch,” he said, adding that passengers adhered to social distancing and wore masks.
Rosmarin started traveling the world in 2022 after leaving his job as a media buyer. He has an influential partnership with the ship operator. The company covered the cost of his trip, which included stops on remote islands in the South Atlantic, including South Georgia Island.
“We saw a colony of king penguins, the largest in the world, ranging from 300,000 to 500,000,” Rosmarin said. “We were able to see gentoo penguins, fur seals, elephant seals, chinstrap penguins, and albatrosses.”
Rosmarin described the MV Hondius as an expedition ship rather than a cruise ship. He added that since passengers and crew will be disembarked on the islands, some of which have fragile ecosystems, biosecurity measures have been taken.
“The expedition ship is cleaner than any cruise ship you will ever go on,” Rosmarin added. “For Georgia South, there were the most stringent biosecurity measures. We have to sit in the lounge and get the fuzz out of our jackets. You have to get a little pebble in your shoe.”
However, these precautions were intended to protect the environment from passengers, not the other way around.
His planned five-week trip was extended to six weeks because he was unable to get off the ship once the outbreak was discovered.
“We didn’t really know it was Hantavirus until the night we were supposed to come down,” Rosmarin said.
His fiancée, Rosemarine, is waiting at his home in Boston. The couple plans to marry next year. “I think he tried to be calm for me, but I think he was pretty scared, too,” Rosmarin said Tuesday.
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Associated Press writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.