Former CDC Director On Hantavirus, Cruise Ship Risks

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Tuesday, May 12th, 2026, I'm Dave Anthony. The haunt of virus outbreak on a cruise ship now has some passengers quarantined in the U.S. We're not going to have significant human-human transmission. It's not going to involve people outside this original group to any degree. There may be a few more secondary infections because of human-to-human transmission, but this is not COVID. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. The Democratic Party's leader in the House says they will fight on with plans to get more congressional seats in Virginia and in other states after a recent court ruling knocked back efforts to gain districts ahead of midterms. The fact that we're fighting over this so hard and so extended in so many places speaks to the polarization in our politics. And I'm Joe Concha. I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown. From being quarantined at sea to now being isolated on land in the U.S. 18 Americans evacuated from a haunt of virus-stricken cruise ship. are under close observation at special facilities. Like the University of Nebraska Medical Center, one who tested positive is in a biocontainment unit there. As for the 15 others in Omaha. They are doing well, actually. They currently do not have any symptoms and have a good appetite, although they're very tired, understandably, but it's been a really long journey for these folks. That's Dr. Angela Hewlett. Two others, a couple, are at Emory University in Atlanta. One was showing mild symptoms and put in a biocontainment unit there, and since they had such close contact, the other is under close monitoring. President Trump says... It seems like it is not easy to spread. In fact, it's in certain ways very hard to spread. But the outbreak did kill three passengers on the ship before the last one's on board finally got off at a Canary Islands port over the weekend. Well, it's obviously much different than the COVID pandemic. First and foremost, when COVID pandemic started, we didn't know anything about COVID. Dr. Robert Redfield is an infectious disease expert, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during COVID times in the first Trump administration. We hadn't really experienced it as a virus in humans. And so there was just a total unknown. Whereas the Hatha virus has been with us for a long time. We had probably one of the biggest outbreaks was in the Korean War. The U.S. military had significant problems with the Hata virus that we knew as Korean hemorrhagic fever. Again, this is a virus as a class that usually goes rodent to human. There is one exception, which is the Andes variant, which is the variant that we're dealing with on this cruise ship. It's a hanta virus that's in Argentina and Chile in particular. It has been an outbreak in Argentina since last summer.

There's been over 100 cases in Argentina since last summer, and it's actually picked up since after the first of the year. And it gets into the urine and the feces, which is where the virus is. And it can infect humans if they're contaminated with infected material. Okay. Like if I'm sweeping up in the garage or something like that, is it getting the air? Is that how it goes? Yeah, this is what happened in the Korean hemorrh. Korean War, what happened was we brought helicopters in, and the helicopters would come in and let the troops off, but with the propellers going, they'd aerosolize all the soil. Wow. And then the troops would breathe in infected material, and that's how they got infected. You can also get infected from contaminated material that you get on your hands, and then you put in your mouth or your nose or your eyes. But as far as person-to-person, Is it through shaking hands? Is it through the air? Probably aerosolized, but also potentially contaminated surfaces. But again, person to person very rare. In this current outbreak, we know the index cases, the husband and wife that both died, they most likely obviously got infected in Argentina. They were bird watching. One of the challenges when you watch birds, if you want to see a lot of birds, You can go to dumps. Oh, okay. And then at dumps, there's this other thing called rodents. That's probably the epidemiology of how they got infected. Clearly, there's evidence, though, unfortunately, of human-to-human transmission in this outbreak because one of the real significant infections occurred among the doctor that was taking care of these patients on the ship. One of the problems in figuring it all out, and I'm sure the epidemiologists are really trying to put down some tracks on this, is the incubation period from infection. to when you would develop symptoms for antiviruses in general is about, can be up to eight weeks. It turns out for the Andy's variant that we're dealing with here, it's usually about six weeks with peak infections within two to three weeks. Okay, so this, we may get more infection as the days go forward. That's right, particularly if there was significant human-to-human transmission on the ship. We may still not be surprised you see a case, and it doesn't mean that it's an ongoing outbreak. It could be that these infections occurred weeks ago. I want to talk about somebody who got sick. I want you to hear about Jennifer Beneviot. She was on Fox and Friends on Monday morning. She's a hauntavirus survivor. She got it back in 2010. Let's listen to what her symptoms were like when she got it first. I was so tired and exhausted. And then I began to, I have a lot of vomiting and nausea and muscle weakness and like cramping really bad. And then she says it got worse. She was on a ventilator. Her heart stopped three separate times. She finally did recover. But then even years later, she says this.

I do have some brain fog, and I do have a lot of muscle weakness and tingling in my extremities. But for the most part, I am okay. I relearned everything. My motor functions are all back, so I'm pretty much okay. Is this a typical case of Hanta virus or no? The general presentation of Hanta virus is extremely nonspecific. Like you said, it's fever, muscle aches and pains. That's like the flu, COVID, right? Like the flu, like COVID. And this is one of the challenges, as you see is the health authorities are tracking some of these patients that got off the plane in St. Helena and flew home on commercial airlines. There's that whole group. Yeah. in California, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, New Jersey. Because you can have just flu-like symptoms, a cold, and you know, you don't know the difference. The difference is if you go into the next phase, which we call the Hanta Pulmonary Syndrome phase, that sounds like what this young lady eventually went into and developed severe pulmonary disease. And you can go into respiratory failure. requiring a ventilator. There's no really known intervention other than supportive care. Okay. And at that time, it's a flip of the coin. Anywhere from 30 to 50% of people that go into the will die. And she was fortunate enough to recover. And with hauntavirus, there's no medicine, right? There's nothing to kills the virus. No medicine that we have right now. Obviously, you know, I'm a big advocate that we need to accelerate the development of antivirals so that we can have different medications for different diseases like COVID, but also I'm very worried about bird flu. And obviously, Hans is a good example. We don't have any meaningful therapeutics, but they could be developed. And I would argue that we should be developing therapeutics for these pathogens. This outbreak. On that cruise ship, the MV Hondias, brings us back six years. You may recall the Diamond Princess, a cruise in the Western Pacific at the start of the COVID outbreak in February 2020. It was quarantined in Japan. The virus spread. Hundreds of people on the ship were infected. The truth is, crude ships... are floating petri dishes. One of the hardest things, it wasn't a hard decision for me. It was a lot of people didn't like my decision, but when I was CDC director, I made the decision to close down the cruise line industry. A lot of people lost their jobs. We were losing a lot of people. They were dying on these cruise lines, and they were not prepared to deal with the COVID pandemic. But this virus that we're talking about here, very difficult virus to have significant transmission on a cruise. Crucial. Okay. All right. You mentioned the Diamond Princess, and it was a very important ship that taught us a lot, because at the time, WHO had stated definitively that there was no human-to-human transmission and there was no asymptomatic effect. Right. At the early of COVID, that's what we thought.

And so the Japanese invited CDC and to help them on the Diamond Princess. And we went in and I took the position that let's just test everybody on the ship. And lo and behold, we found out that over half the people on the ship were infected. Which was a surprise, I'm sure. It was beyond a surprise. And of the ones that were infected, most of them had no symptoms. So immediately I knew that our public health response for COVID. was incorrect. Now, the virus is not like this. We know of, right, asymptomatic? We've known it for seven, you know, we've known these class of viruses for over 70 years. So it's not like they're new to us. I will say that the Andy's variant is newer. I think there's an advantage. in going wider. Now, what harm is there to test everybody to see? Now, if that asymptomatic individual is infected, then you have to, in my view, you have to test everybody independent of symptoms. I suspect, and I've dealt with hanta viruses over my 40-year career, 50-year career in human infections, and I'd say that it's very likely that it's going to hold up that if you have a hanta virus infection, you're going to be symptomatic. People don't want to go through this again. It was just six years ago. COVID was just going crazy and we were shut down and all that. Nobody wants to go through that again. This is not COVID, right? What we're dealing with here. We're not going to have significant human, human transmission. It's not going to involve people outside this original group to any degree. There may be a few more secondary infections because of human-to-human transmission, but this is not COVID. And in these early outbreaks, I think it's better to prove definitively that there's no asymptomatic transmission by evaluating people and showing there's no asymptomatic. I remember in the Diamond Princess, one of the things that was really interesting. When we looked at the Diamond Princess and found out who was infected, I had people that were infected on deck one, deck two, deck three, deck four, deck five, deck six. all in the same room. And then the next room over, nobody, the next room over, nobody, nobody. And then the next room over, every room in that thing, deck one, two, three, four, five, six, all infected. All in the same column. All in the same column. All up and down the ship. Why? That was a good question. So we figured it out. Turns out in those ships, the way the toilets were connected is when you flush the toilet on the first floor, you aerosolize the toilets all the way down that line. That sounds gross, by the way. Yeah, but, you know, if you had a virus, which COVID was in the feces, I mean, wastewater was a good way that we started monitoring it, you know, to see where it was by measuring wastewater and universities and stuff like that. So what they were doing is every time they flushed the toilet, they were aerosolizing it in the whole, the rooms up and down. Isn't that crazy? Oh, my. So, all right, so again, this is not that. Not that.

All right. I suspect there's a real possibility that we won't see any more infections or there may still be a couple more only because I told you there's that six-week, eight-week incubation period. Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back in the First Trump administration and an infectious disease specialist for decades. Great to have you on the show again. Thanks, doctor. Thanks again. Google is offering free AI training and tools to U.S. small businesses so they can innovate in ways both big and small. Built by Google experts, the Google AI Professional Certificate equipped small businesses with practical AI skills. Through hands-on projects, they can start using AI to get more done and unlock new opportunities for their business. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at grow. Google slash business. 2026 marks 250 years of America. And throughout the year, Bill Hammer takes listeners on a journey through the 250 most impactful moments in American history. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcasts.com. This is Joe Concha with your Fox News commentary coming up. On Friday, Virginia's state Supreme Court found state lawmakers violated procedure when they placed a constitutional redistricting amendment on the ballot. Voters passed the new map that would have given Democrats all but one House seat. I was very disappointed in the Virginia Supreme Court overturning an election. California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna told Fox News he's also concerned with last week's Supreme Court ruling that found Louisiana's effort to have a second black majority district violated the equal protection clause. This isn't about winning the House. We're going to win back the House anyway. This is about reversing some of the progress we made in the civil rights movement. Monday, Virginia Democrats asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote. in a letter to Democratic colleagues Monday that their effort to forcefully push back against the Republican redistricting scheme will not slow down, that they are just getting started. The House Democratic Caucus is planning to meet Thursday. While Democrats say the redistricting war started in Texas last year, not everyone agrees, including Republican State Representative John Stevens in Tennessee, where lawmakers voted last week to eliminate their sole Democrat seat. I believe this really started in New York. If you remember, there were three Republicans who won. unexpectedly, New York immediately redistricted to take them out of office. And that kind of set the stage for Texas to take action. The New York Times reports there was a call among top-level Virginia Democrats along with Hakeem Jeffries over the weekend, in which they discussed a number of ideas, including having Virginia lawmakers vote to lower the retirement age for Virginia's Supreme Court justices. The Democrats are desperate. I'm not certain they've got any good options in the short run. Fox News contributor.

and former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, Carl Rove. Because the court held by a four to three majority that they had failed to abide by the state laws, which require them to braise this issue in two consecutive sessions. So they're stuck for now. I don't think anything happens for the 2026 elections, but we might expect Virginia to move before the 28. It sounds like, though, this plan, according to the New York Times, there was a call with several Democrats. They discussed the possibility of invalidating the constitutional amendment that created the state's independent redistricting commission, as well as lowering the retirement age of judges. to somewhere like in their mid-50s so that they could oust the current Supreme Court? Do you think they'd actually go through with all of this? Well, if they do, they're going to face a severe reaction from the voters of the Commonwealth. Remember, they spent $60 some odd million. They had the support of the governor, the General Assembly, the State Senate. The Democrats were confident they were going to get this thing through, and they won it by like, you know, less than two points. in a state that is, you know, purple. So I don't, you know, they may try some of the stuff, but I think it would be rejected by the voters. And they'd face some real consequences if they tried to do that. Yeah. Do you think it's more likely to your earlier point that they'd just scrap that idea maybe? And especially if they don't have the support of Governor Abigail Spanberger, which I don't know if they do yet. And just like you said, stick with a plan for 2028 to just do the procedure in a more proper manner. I think so. I think that's what they're likely to do. And they've got the numbers in the House of Delegates and the State Senate to get that done. You know, this whole measure has been set off by Texas, which did a mid-decade redistricting, and every state has jumped through hoops. The two that did the most jumping hour were California and Virginia. Virginia got caught by the Supreme Court. California, which had a, quote, fair redistricting panel established by a constitutional amendment. They didn't care whether it was in the Constitution or not. They just went around it. What do you make of some Republicans saying that it didn't really start in Texas, that it started before that with Democrats' efforts, for example, in New York? Well, it's clear that, I mean, look, both parties have been using in recent decades. The power of their legislative majorities to draw lines in their states that are favorable to that party, whether it's New York, whether it's dominated. The legislature is dominated by Democrats after the 2020 census and the 2021 reapportionment. They created a favorable map. And same in Texas, where they created a favorable map. The Democrats found it so unfavorable in Texas that they left the state in order to try and block the passage of that bill.

So this has been going on for a while, and yes, there are states that have historically redistricted to the disadvantage of the Republicans. California was one. New York is another. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois. Illinois is probably one of the most egregious. They presided over, I mean, there are districts that literally look like a salamander. This has been done historically by each party to the other party. And so Republicans are correct. They can point back and say, well, you did this in New York and New Jersey and Connecticut and California and Washington State in Illinois and Massachusetts. But, you know, it's been going on for a long, long time. You know, Democrats have had quite a few wins over the last year, right? They've flipped some red state House seats in Texas and Georgia. They just won a special election in this bellwether seat in Michigan. The House Minority Leader and D.C. Chair Susan Del Benet, they've sounded very confident at every turn about midterms. And I'm just wondering, does this reaction about Virginia mean they're not as confident as they sound? Or are they just looking at the map and saying, even if we win and flip the house, which is expected, we don't want it to be close? What is this effort about? Well, look, we're a bitterly divided country, and the Congress is the lines are written in such way that there are a relatively small number of districts. If you take all of the seats that are up for grabs that either lean Democrat, lean Republican, or are toss-ups, if the Democrats took every one of them, it would be smaller than the victory that they had in 2018. and so historically at least in the last nearly hundred years there have only been three occasions when the president's party gained seats in the house of representatives in a midterm election in each of those instances the president was enormously popular The president's approval rating today is in the low 40s. So it's likely that the Democrats are going to take the House. It would take an extraordinary action for it to be a Republican victory. On the other hand, though, it could be that they end up with as modest a margin, you know, five or ten seats as the Republicans have had over the last several years. And that ain't fun. Well, that is not fun at all for the Speaker of the House, regardless of what party he's from. Yeah. The Houseman or leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said after the Virginia ruling, aside from this apparent plan to work on Virginia itself, they will now focus on other states, including New York. He wrote, this is just the beginning. Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw, and we will win. You touched on this, but how much is left for Democrats to redraw? I think we're looking at like Colorado, Illinois.

Look, this is bravado. They've held the primaries in Illinois. What are they going to do? Run the primaries again. Well, what about for 2028? Maybe the focus is for the next time. We could probably expect that. Let's look. Once unleashed, you know, it's hard to put that genie back in the bottle to mix metaphors. So, yeah, the Democrats are likely where they have the ability to do it and provided that they're not, you know, absolutely, you know, sort of exhausted after this year's election. We can expect them to try and do this next year. You bet. Without Virginia's gerrymander, Republicans have, it appears, depending on how this all will end up breaking down, eight to ten additional seats, right? Three to five in Texas, zero to two in Ohio, four in Florida, one in Tennessee, one in North Carolina, potentially one in Missouri, though that's being challenged. And Democrats have that five in California and one in Utah that stems from a court ruling. You've seen a lot over the years. How confusing and messy is all of this, given all the things you've seen? It will be enormously messy because... You know, you've suddenly got a lot of members, Republicans in California, Democrats in Florida, who are running in districts that are not the districts that they've represented in some instances for years and years and years. So this is a, you know, you got to go raise the money. You've got to go build the organization. You've got to go introduce yourself to voters. You got to, you know, you got to campaign in a place that you may have never campaigned before. So, yeah, it's problematic for both parties. And you're right that the Republicans could. be as many as eight to 10 seats advantage. I'm not certain. I think it's more likely to be closer to eight than it is to 10. But the fact that we're fighting over this so hard and so extended in so many places speaks to the polarization in our politics and how likely it is that the outcome of this election, the party that gains control is likely to have a relatively modest margin given historic standards. And Carl, how impactful do you think the Supreme Court's Calais decision out of Louisiana will end up being here? We know Tennessee's already moved at a GOPC. Louisiana will likely redraw their map to get rid of at least one of those two democratically held seats. The Supreme Court says Alabama can move forward with a new map, but their primary is next week. And we don't yet know if South Carolina will successfully dismantle Jim Clyburn's seat yet. So where do you think all this lands? Louisiana, that's the seat that was drawn to create a majority minority seat, is horrendous. It literally goes across three quarters of the state and at some points looks like it's the, you know, about as wide as a road and is an abomination. On the other hand,

The Jim Clyburn seat in South Carolina is relatively compact and concise. And as Trey Gowdy pointed out on Sunday night, if the Republicans want to carve up South Carolina in a different way, it's going to take, you know, like cutting up the up country, which has historically been, you know, Greenville and Spartanburg have historically been in one congressional district. But if you want to carve up the Jim Clyburn seat, you've got to basically split them apart. and reach down to pick up more Democratic precincts in the Jim Clyburn seat. So we run the risk like Memphis is now split up in three districts. And what that's going to do is it's going to make three Republicans in place of two Democrats, two Republicans and one Democrat. But each of those Republican seats is going to be a little bit more problematic to win in a swing election year. Yeah. Carl, finally, before I let you go, the president says he would like to suspend the gas tax, given how high prices are right now. I think he'd need Congress to do that. But there are a number of Senate Democrats on board with this idea. Do you think this happens? And if it does, does everyone get to claim credit and it's not a clear political win for either party? I think that's right. And it doesn't turn out to be much of a win. Remember, it's 18.4 cents per gallon of gas. So if you're paying, you know, $350 or $4 a gallon for gas, you're going to see a little bit of price decrease, but not a lot. And it's going to cause havoc on, you know, the gas tax is what funds road construction and road maintenance. And how are you going to replace those funds? You know, are you going to replace them by drawing on income taxes or adding to the deficit? You know, we'll see how, you know, how this fares. It's one of the things that politicians do when gas prices go up. They talk about suspending gas taxes, but there's, you know, it ain't a free lunch. And then we're not going to want those taxes to go back in place ever. Carl Rove, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you. You bet. Thanks so much for having.

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