The individual was apparently diagnosed with the rodent-borne virus after taking a flight alongside someone with the disease, marking the first confirmed infection in someone with no direct connection to the MV Hondius. Three further patients have been evacuated for treatment elsewhere, including a British medic from the ship, a sailor of Dutch nationality, and one German guest. World Health Organization chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus has said the trio is currently “on their way to receive medical care in the Netherlands.” Another person has been hospitalized in Zurich, where authorities insist there is “no risk to the Swiss public.” The pathogen behind the outbreak, dubbed the Andes virus, stands alone among hantaviruses for its ability to spread between humans, with a mortality rate that may reach 40 percent. A Dutch woman aged 69 left the vessel at Saint Helena, flew onward to Johannesburg, and died there—potentially exposing as many as 114 fellow travelers.
plague ships. you know, if someone re-imagined and reconfigured that right wing crank novel Camp of Saints, but made it about these cruise ships full of elderly affluent types as the most notorious innoculum and vectors of disease for global pandemics due to their ability to travel great distances, rapidly over biophysical barriers and through political boundaries… it could be a true horror story as they spread novel diseases through the core and periphery, where the only “winners” are the hostile, uncontacted peoples who maybe descend from a lineage that survived this all before. boom, twist, story takes place 80,000 years ago - OR - 80,000 years in the future. time is a flat circle. directed by Hiro Murai.