HANTAVIRUS?: We Are NOT Ready For New Pandemic
Breaking Points
0:00 Crystal, let's start.
0:01 We can play some of what it was
0:03 looking like yesterday as people disembarked in Spain.
0:07 That ship obviously where people have been quarantined for a really long time.
0:11 This is D1.
0:11 You'll be able to see it off see it on the screen.
0:14 And if you're listening to it, what you're seeing is the ship coming
0:16 into port in Spain's Canary Islands and people
0:20 starting to disembark finally after I believe they
0:23 actually got on the ship on March 29th.
0:26 I think that was the first day of travel in this ship
0:30 where the hantavirus was spreading three deceased already in connection with it.
0:35 So, how significant is the hantavirus?
0:38 Is it another coronavirus?
0:40 Let's dig into this a little bit and go to the president
0:43 being asked recently if he was briefed on the hantavirus.
0:47 This is going to be the next This is D2.
0:50 Let's take a listen.
0:52 Thank you.
0:54 Have you been briefed on the virus?
0:55 Yes, I have.
0:56 Can you tell us what you learned in your briefing?
0:58 Well, I think you're going to be told everything and you already have.
1:03 It's very much we hope under control.
1:05 There was the ship and I think we're
1:08 going to make a full report about it tomorrow.
1:10 We have a lot of people It's a lot of great people that are studying it.
1:13 It should be fine.
1:14 We hope.
1:18 I hope not.
1:18 I mean, I hope not.
1:19 We'll do the best we can.
1:20 Yeah.
1:21 All right.
1:21 So, what you heard there is the invocation of the word hope twice.
1:24 I hope not.
1:24 Hopefully under control.
1:25 [laughter] Let's take a listen to NIH Very confidence inspiring.
1:29 Yes, I How can you not take that and run with it, Crystal?
1:32 NIH director Jay Bhattacharya who comes out of Actually,
1:36 was appointed to this position because of some of what
1:38 I would argue is his prescient work during the coronavirus pandemic.
1:43 He is now the director of the NIH.
1:45 Here is him on State of the Union with Jake
1:47 Tapper CNN yesterday asking answering questions about the hantavirus.
1:51 I'm told that it can take up to 6 weeks
1:54 for somebody who was exposed to hantavirus to begin to show symptoms.
1:59 So, that is about 4 weeks ago.
2:02 Um So, they're not technically out of the woods yet.
2:05 There's still 2 weeks left.
2:06 When did you begin monitoring these seven?
2:09 Do any of them have any symptoms?
2:14 [snorts] Well, I think it's uh we first learned about
2:15 CDC roughly uh the time they started to come home.
2:19 I think maybe 3 weeks ago.
2:20 I I'd have to look the exact dates up uh Jake,
2:23 but it's uh but I've been I've been I've been tracking the situation.
2:26 The CDC teams have been tracking the situation for a while now.
2:28 We're as I said, we're in close contact with the state and local public health
2:32 agencies for uh protocols for uh managing
2:35 these patients including contact tracing uh regular check-ins,
2:39 symptoms checks, um and and if there's if
2:42 there's if there's any like symptoms that develop
2:45 uh protocols for getting them to to to to to care uh rapidly and testing them.
2:50 Um so, it's been it's been basically the whole the whole time, I think.
2:53 Um it's it's been interesting to again,
2:54 I said there's to watch a lot of the a lot
2:56 of the uh the thinking around this uh is colored, I think,
3:01 by the COVID uh experience um in the in the press,
3:05 but the protocols that we have followed are more in line with the normal
3:09 hantavirus protocols that again were followed in 2018 in in the United States.
3:14 Well, unlike all the precautions we're seeing this morning,
3:17 a few weeks ago when these seven people flew home,
3:19 they flew home with lots of other passengers.
3:22 Has there been an effort to do contact tracing
3:24 and let those other passengers know who interacted with those seven?
3:30 So, those passengers those those pass those passengers on the ship
3:34 that flew home were not symptomatic when they flew home.
3:37 So, the the because the virus
3:40 doesn't spread unless somebody has active symptoms,
3:43 those passengers on the planes are considered contacts of contacts.
3:47 So again, there's not there's not a there's not
3:49 a a reason to do that kind of like, you know, sort of recursive contact tracing,
3:53 but you do want to make sure that you check them regularly to so that they
3:57 don't have if they if they develop
3:58 symptoms or if there's other other other considerations,
4:01 give them advice especially to to to if they are if they're if
4:04 they're to reduce their contacts with others
4:07 others when it's appropriate to do so.
4:09 Crystal reaction to Trump and Jay Bhattacharya there.
4:13 Um, they are going to get more I mean, so right now we just put this New York
4:18 Times tear sheet up on the screen next element.
4:21 Uh, right now what we have is US passengers who were aboard the ship.
4:27 They are being they're disembarking and as we we just saw,
4:31 they are now going to be quarantined at a center in Nebraska.
4:37 So, they're being transported to this the center in Nebraska.
4:42 These are the American citizens who had been
4:44 aboard the ship and the next element here, NBC News, seven states are preparing
4:49 to receive Americans possibly exposed to the hantavirus.
4:53 So, the quote US has has entered emergency response mode as a cruise
4:57 ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak
4:59 sails toward one of Spain's Canary Islands.
5:01 Of the 150 passengers on board,
5:04 17 of them are Americans and seven states are preparing their emergency
5:11 response for people who are potentially exposed to this to return home
5:18 and to also just tracking the spread where this could have already gone
5:22 in the United States based on that incubation period Tapper was referring to.
5:26 Of apparently up to six weeks, six weeks and some American passengers
5:31 disembarked along with others on April 24th.
5:35 So, states like Georgia, Texas,
5:37 they're monitoring two residents who were on the ship.
5:39 Arizona and Virginia each have one resident
5:43 who disembarked that ship on Uh, the 24th.
5:46 California as well, There's one California resident who is on board the ship.
5:50 New Jersey has two residents who were not on the ship,
5:53 but could have been exposed to an infected person.
5:57 Texas, as well, uh, has residents who were on board that they are monitoring.
6:01 So, potentially, uh, rather dangerous situation,
6:05 uh, Crystal, but the World Health Organization,
6:08 just before I I'll I'll I'll toss it to you after we listen to a WHO uh,
6:12 outbreak effort expert here from the World Health
6:15 Organization who says this is different from coronavirus D4.
6:19 This is not coronavirus.
6:21 Uh, this is a very different virus.
6:23 We know this virus.
6:24 Hantaviruses have been around for quite a while.
6:27 There's a lot of detail that we know.
6:29 I'm going to ask NAEIS to come in and say
6:30 this, but I want to be unequivocal here.
6:32 This is not SARS-CoV-2.
6:34 This is not the start of a COVID pandemic.
6:36 This is an outbreak that we see on a ship.
6:38 There's a confined area.
6:40 We have five confirmed cases so far.
6:43 We completely understand why these questions are coming,
6:46 and we are trying to provide all of the information that we can.
6:49 That's why we're having a press conference here to give accurate information,
6:52 and we're grateful for all of those who
6:54 out there who are asking these types of questions.
6:57 But, this is not the same situation we were in 6 years ago.
7:00 Um, it doesn't spread the same way, um, like coronaviruses do.
7:04 It's very different.
7:05 It's that close intimate contact that we've seen.
7:07 And most hantaviruses don't transmit between people at all.
7:11 Most hantaviruses are transmitted from rodents or their feces or their saliva,
7:15 um, and their droppings, um, to people.
7:18 And only this one particular virus, the Andes virus,
7:21 which has been identified here, we've seen some human-to-human transmission.
7:24 We'll get to that in just 1 second, how this may have transmitted,
7:28 but, Crystal, uh, Virginia, you're in one of the states affected here.
7:32 Yay!
7:33 I mean, I have to hope that lady is right because
7:35 we are so screwed as a country if we have another pandemic.
7:39 Like, no one is going to believe anything and like
7:44 a libertarian approach to a pandemic is a horrifying idea
7:49 because we do all live together and have to do
7:51 some community things and if the science says you need
7:54 to isolate and you need to take these precautions then
7:57 look there are values that underpin that and those values can
8:00 be debated but no one is going to believe anything
8:04 and it is going to be a total and complete mess.
8:06 We have a Health and Human Services Secretary and RFK Jr.
8:10 who is a total nut job crank completely ideological.
8:14 He's staffed all of these agencies with fellow ideological travelers.
8:18 I mean Bhattacharya even like indulged
8:21 his idea that autism is caused by vaccines
8:24 and wanted to pull the mRNA vaccine off
8:27 the market and all this kind of nonsense.
8:29 So it will be such a disaster.
8:31 I just have to assume that this is going to be fine and it's
8:34 not going to spread further and we're all going to be okay because I can't
8:37 wrap my head around well with everything else that's going on I just cannot wrap
8:41 my head around what will happen
8:43 to this country if we actually had another pandemic.
8:45 Yeah, [snorts] so I remember saying this like
8:49 right as things were starting to fall away.
8:50 Like we have not for the original restrictions
8:53 and such from COVID were starting to fall away.
8:55 Like we didn't earn a reprieve from a pandemic.
8:58 Like we didn't earn another century like with the Spanish
9:01 flu to from 20 from I'm sorry from 1919 to 2020.
9:07 It's not like that's guaranteed that you
9:09 just like you went through a really tough
9:11 time and thankfully it's behind us and we won't have to deal with it ever again.
9:14 Right.
9:15 This can pop up at any any time and I think maybe
9:18 the first piece I wrote during COVID was like prepare for pandemic during
9:22 an era of low institutional trust which Crystal now feels so quaint because
9:27 institutional trust in 2020 versus institutional trust
9:31 in 2026 is such a different ballgame.
9:34 Completely different ballgame.
9:36 Like it it has been where we are now,
9:39 our ability to actually go along with any like
9:42 collective measures if they were if they were absolutely necessary.
9:45 I mean, you and I do this for a living and actually getting to the bottom
9:48 of what's happening in these situations is
9:51 difficult enough because the World Health Organization,
9:54 the woman who's talking to you now from the World Health Organization,
9:57 was also in charge of the COVID response.
9:59 So, it's like you're getting your information either
10:01 from her or from I don't know, like RFK Jr.
10:05 who a lot of people don't have trust in.
10:06 So, good luck to us, I guess.
10:10 Like, best of luck.
10:12 Well, the reason that some people have trust in RFK Jr.
10:14 is because they also shouldn't have trust in his enemies.
10:17 Like, they his enemies have proven themselves untrustworthy
10:19 and so then you get it's like with Trump, right?
10:22 Like, people put their trust in him because
10:23 his enemies have proven untrustworthy and it becomes a vicious
10:26 cycle and nobody knows actually where to turn
10:28 for good information and that situation has only gotten worse,
10:32 believe it or not, since 2020.
10:33 I mean, everybody believes it, but that's how bad it is.
10:36 It's going to God forbid.
10:38 Like, it will be such a mess.
10:40 It will be a disaster.
10:41 So many people will die unnecessarily.
10:42 It's just we we just can't.
10:44 Please please God, we just can't.
10:46 Please Emily, do some extra praying [laughter] for us cuz we just can't.
10:49 Okay?
10:49 I got you.
10:50 I got you.
10:51 Just just don't ask the Etsy witches for help.
10:53 I don't think that's going to work.
10:54 [laughter] You don't think so?
10:56 I don't know.
10:56 Maybe it's worth a try.
11:00 [laughter] I was thinking that as anything else.
11:01 Um there was one noteworthy update though I wanted to put D8 up on the screen.
11:05 So, part of the story was that the original notion
11:07 was that the patient patient zero in terms of this ship,
11:10 that he and his wife had gone bird watching
11:14 at a landfill and that that was where they I mean, this is logical, right?
11:19 You've got uh birds like landfills.
11:21 Apparently, this is something that bird watchers do because there's
11:23 a lot of birds at landfills cuz there's a reliable food source,
11:27 but also rats like landfills for obvious reasons and so the thought was,
11:31 okay, this is where they contracted
11:33 this particular type of hunter hantavirus where you
11:36 can spread it person to person and that's what makes this like really scary.
11:40 But apparently the timetable for that does not work out
11:43 and they had also visited this other area in Argentina
11:46 where there is a known infection and spread and problem
11:51 a weeks earlier unrelated to any landfill bird watching.
11:54 So apparently the bird watching sort of indicated here.
11:57 So did want to did want to make sure that people had that update.
12:00 Well, just like the pangolin speaking of history rhyming just like
12:05 the vindication of the pangolin back in 2020 but actually I mean
12:10 they aren't they aren't totally vindicated because as far as we
12:12 know they still did this and in my book that's not vindication.
12:16 [laughter] Kind of like a bird in a landfill in remote South America.
12:19 I'm not I just even if you didn't
12:21 cause the virus outbreak I refuse to vindicate you.
12:24 Get better hobbies.
12:25 You don't want to encourage similar behavior from others.
12:28 Please like Well, I don't want to puzzle
12:31 I don't want to encourage any behavior risky
12:33 behavior of just people going on cruise ships
12:35 in general let's put D7 up on the screen.
12:37 Yeah.
12:38 Apparently there's a massive outbreak of norovirus which is norovirus is hell.
12:43 I'm sure everybody watching this has had it.
12:45 Having kids I've had it multiple times it's horrendous.
12:48 Anyway you've got 115 people on this cruise
12:51 ship who contracted norovirus which again absolute nightmare.
12:57 Cruise ships are gross they're just like floating petri dishes.
13:01 People do something else for your vacations.
13:03 Please let's take off the potential
13:06 vacation list cruise ships and landfill visits.
13:10 How about that?
13:11 when you combine both of them you do a landfill
13:13 visit and then you get on a cruise ship.
13:16 Yeah and let's also go to a part of Argentina remote part
13:20 of Argentina where there's a hantavirus outbreak
13:22 and then hop on the cruise ship.
13:23 Let's do that too.
13:24 Yeah no why Why What could go wrong?
13:26 What could go wrong?
13:27 I tried to get it so that our next uh breaking point staff
13:30 retreat uh actually our first breaking We we haven't done a staff retreat,
13:33 but if we did Crystal, I think it should be on a cruise ship.
13:36 I think we should take a Viking river cruise.
13:39 I'm going to zoom in to that one.
13:41 Thank you.
13:43 [laughter] Just give me the meeting link.
13:45 I'll be there, Em.
13:46 The meeting link for it, but you can't log off.
13:47 It's 24/7.
13:51 [laughter] It's just a live feed from the Viking river cruise.
13:55 [laughter] [gasps] All right.
13:56 Well, we'll probably not do that.
13:59 Okay.
14:00 [laughter]
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