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‘Empty and vapid’ CDC finally responds to hantavirus outbreak. But experts say it’s too little, too late

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed it is sending a team to Spain’s Canary Islands, where the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is expected to arrive on Sunday, and US passengers will be evacuated to an airbase in Nebraska. However, experts say the US is unprepared for such a disease threat. The CDCs limited role in responding to the hantavirus outbreak is raising questions, including whether it now has a diminished role in responding to health scares. Most of the response has been led by the World Health Organization (WHO), of which the US is no longer a member. The hantavirus outbreak was reported to the WHO on 2 May; a notice issued two days later updated to seven confirmed or suspected cases. Three people had died, one person was critically ill and three others had mild symptoms. On Wednesday, the CDC said in a statement it was “closely monitoring the situation” and said the state department was leading a “whole-of-government response including direct contact with passengers, diplomatic coordination, and engagement with domestic and international health authorities”. It wasn’t until Thursday that the CDC activated its 24/7 emergency center in Atlanta to monitor the recent hantavirus outbreak and classified it at its lowest activation level. Late on Friday the CDC issued its first health alert to US doctors, advising them of the possibility of imported cases after at least six American passengers disembarked at St Helena. The passengers are being monitored for hantavirus in several US states. At the CDC’s first briefing, held on Saturday by telephone only for invited reporters, according to the Associated Press, officials pledged to be transparent in updating the public but said the media could not cite the speakers by name under guidelines issued by aides to the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. Dr Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which operates separately from the CDC under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in an X post: “Our CDC team began coordinating with domestic and international partners as soon as we were notified of a hantavirus situation. We understand that people are concerned and looking for information and that is why we provided clear, written health guidance to the American passengers through the State Department.” Bhattacharya added that the “CDC has the world’s leading experts on hantavirus and is lending its technical expertise when coordinating with interagency partners, state health offices, and international authorities on response and repatriation planning”. But experts and former government health officials say the response by the CDC has been feeble compared with how it dealt with similar outbreaks in the past. “The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University, told the AP. “I’ve never seen that before.” The hantavirus outbreak is “a sentinel event” that speaks to “how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I’m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,” said Dr Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. The CDC’s response is not typical for an agency that has in the past been at the forefront with the WHO in comparable infectious disease mysteries, both in developing ways to control them and communicate to the public what they should know and if they should be concerned. “I don’t think this is a giant threat to the United States,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. But how this situation has played out “just shows how empty and vapid the CDC is right now”, she said. The agency has laid off thousands of scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency’s ship sanitation program. At least four US states – Arizona, Virginia, California and Georgia – are monitoring residents who were onboard the ship. Health officials in Arizona and Georgia have said the individuals under their watch are not symptomatic. California’s department of health said it has “no information that the California residents are ill or infected”. It added in a statement to the Hill: “At this time, the risk to public health in California is low.” Virginia’s department of health said one resident who disembarked and returned to the US “is currently in good health and is under public health monitoring”, adding that “the risk to the general public [is] low”. But the information vacuum left by the CDC may have helped to create space for Covid-era theories to gain a foothold. Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X that she’d texted with alternative medicine medic Mary Talley Bowden about treatments for hantavirus and that Bowden had recommended the horse dewormer ivermectin. “Ivermectin. Also vitamin D and zinc,” Taylor Greene wrote. “Those of us who refused to lockdown, mask up, and get vaxxed took the good ole horse paste and also developed natural immunity.” Gostin said that compared with the CDC’s engaged efforts in trying to control the spread of Covid-19 on the cruise ship Diamond Princess in 2020 when it was quarantined off Japan for two weeks, the agency’s work now is delayed and subdued. He pointed to Trump administration’s preference for making bilateral health agreements with individual nations for information sharing and public health support over channeling information through the WHO. That’s not sufficient, Gostin said. “You can’t possibly cover a global health crisis by doing one-on-one deals with countries here and there,” he added.

UK passengers on hantavirus-hit cruise to be flown to Merseyside for quarantine

Passengers from the UK who are on board the hantavirus-afflicted cruise ship heading for Tenerife will be flown to Merseyside on Sunday for hospital quarantine. The 19 British passengers and three crew will be transferred to Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral, which hosted British people returning from China at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. All 146 passengers of the MV Hondius, where an outbreak has killed three people and caused an international health scare, will be screened for the infection in Tenerife on Sunday morning before being transferred to their home countries. The polar cruise ship is heading to the Canary Islands after spending days stranded off the coast of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde. Local authorities would not allow the ship to dock amid fears of a wider outbreak overwhelming the healthcare system of the small island nation. Similar concerns have been expressed in Tenerife, which received reassurance on Saturday in the form of a personal statement from the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, which described hantavirus as “serious” but said the “risk is low”. He wrote: “I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment. “But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now.” He travelled to Spain on Saturday to meet the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, whose country is coordinating the evacuation from the vessel. The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, successfully lobbied the Spanish government on Thursday to stop the vessel docking in Tenerife, instead agreeing it could be anchored offshore to allow for the transfer of passengers and crew. However, this would only happen when planes were on the asphalt ready to receive them. But winds are expected to pick up off the coast of the island after Monday, meaning any personnel from countries where flights were not arranged may be stuck on board. The ship is on track to arrive in Tenerife sooner than originally expected, in the early hours of Sunday morning. The vessel will anchor off the coast near the southern commercial port of Granadilla where passengers will be screened for the virus. They are being asked to isolate for 42 days from their point of potential exposure, which for most of the passengers will be many days ago. In a message to hospital staff, the chief executive of Wirral University teaching hospital trust, Janelle Holmes, wrote: “The plan is for the British passengers and ship crew not displaying any symptoms of hantavirus to be escorted by UK government staff and given free passage back to the UK and as a precaution they will remain in isolation.” She said the accommodation block on the Arrowe Park hospital site would “provide them with a safe place for their isolation period”.

Péter Magyar sworn in as Hungary’s prime minister ending 16-year Orbán era

The pro-European centre-right leader Péter Magyar has been sworn in as prime minister of Hungary, marking the official end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power. Saturday’s ceremony – during which Magyar had invited people to join him to “write Hungarian history” together and “step through the gate of regime change” – comes a month after his opposition Tisza party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. The result sparked jubilation in Budapest and beyond, as Orbán and his populist, nationalist movement had long been held up by the global far right as an example to emulate. Speaking to the tens of thousands of supporters who had heeded his call to gather outside parliament, the new prime minister described the road to change as very long and often quite bumpy. But Hungarians could finally rejoice, he added. “Today, every freedom-loving person in the world wants to be a little Hungarian,” he said. “You have taught the country and the world that it is the most ordinary, flesh-and-blood people that can defeat the most vicious tyranny,” Magyar added to roaring applause. Earlier he had told parliament that Hungarians had given his party a mandate to launch a “new chapter” in the country’s history. “A mandate not only to change the government, but to change the system as well. To start again.” Under Orbán’s watch, he said, Hungary had become the most corrupt country in the EU. “Orbán’s associates and the elite have a long way to go until they are confronted with what they have done,” he said, vowing that his government would seek justice against those who, even in the last hours, were trying to “steal everything”. He reiterated his earlier calls for Orbán-era appointees to resign, asking them to do so by the end of the month. The first should be Tamás Sulyok, he said, in a reference to the president who had, moments earlier, nominated Magyar to form a government. Outside parliament, the crowds roared their approval at the comment. Magyar pledged to build a more inclusive Hungary, one that would be more free, humane and hopeful than under Orbán’s populist nationalist movement. “What connects us will be stronger than what divides us,” he said. “Hungary will be home for every Hungarian, and everyone can feel like they have a place in the Hungarian nation. Family, friends and communities will be able to speak to each other again.” Early on Saturday, people started pouring into the square outside the country’s neo-Gothic parliament to follow along as the inaugural session was broadcast on large screens. At each glimpse of Magyar, the crowd cheered, while some booed lawmakers from Fidesz and the extreme right Our Homeland party. Many in the crowd had travelled hours to be there. “This is the first time I feel like it’s good to be Hungarian,” said Erzsébet Medve, 68, who had come from Miskolc in north-eastern Hungary. “I feel like I could cry.” As a school teacher, she had long watched in frustration as Orbán and his Fidesz government left the education system deprived of funds. “The government had enough money, but they didn’t spend it there.” Sitting next to her, Marianna Szűcs, 70, said she hoped Hungary would become a more livable country. “Now we feel like our children and grandchildren have a future here.” As she spoke, the crowd behind her began cheering wildly as the newly elected speaker of the house, Ágnes Forsthoffer, announced that the EU flag would be returned to the building after it was taken down by Fidesz in 2014. Szűcs said two of her children had had to move abroad. Both of them had lost their jobs, seemingly after she had spoken out against the Fidesz government, she said. “I’m retired, so they went after them instead,” she said. “Now we hope they will be able to come home.” The landslide victory, in which Tisza won 141 seats in the 199-seat parliament, was a stunning outcome for Magyar, who until recently had been a little known former member of Fidesz’s elite. He burst into public view in early 2024, after he turned on the party, laying bare the inner workings of a system he described as rotten and accusing officials of expanding their power and wealth at the expense of ordinary Hungarians. The new parliament marks the first time since the country’s democratisation in 1990 that Orbán – whose decades-long career saw him shift from pro-democracy campaigner to a Russia-friendly figure lauded by the US Maga movement – will not sit in parliament. Late last month Orbán, 62, said he would instead focus on the reorganisation of his movement. Magyar, 45, has vowed to use his large majority to undo the systems built by Orbán, who had stacked the country’s judiciary, media and state with loyalists as he sought to turn Hungary into a “petri dish for illiberalism”. Beyond the country’s borders, Magyar has also vowed to rebuild Hungary’s long-strained relationship with the EU and work with the bloc to unlock billions in frozen EU funds. Hints of this change were symbolically laced through the plans for Saturday’s swearing in: several anthems were to ring out, paying tribute to Hungary’s EU membership, its sizeable Roma minority and ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries, while the lawyer Vilmos Kátai-Németh was to become the country’s first visually impaired minister, taking on the portfolio of social and family affairs. After years of Orbán’s Hungary lagging behind most of the EU when it came to women’s representation in parliament, more than a quarter of lawmakers will be women – a record high in the country’s post-communist history. It was not by coincidence that Saturday’s swearing in took place on Europe Day, which commemorates the proposal that gave rise to the modern-day EU, said Anita Orbán, Tisza’s incoming foreign minister. “The message is clear: Hungary’s place is in Europe. Naturally, firmly, and without question,” Orbán, who has no relation to the former prime minister, said on social media. It was an echo of the actions Magyar has taken in the weeks since the election, as he sought to emphasise the end of what he described as Hungary’s “two-decade-long nightmare”; vowing to suspend broadcasts from state media that functioned as Orbán mouthpieces, calling on Orbán-era appointees to resign; meeting twice with EU officials, and sending back the millions of Hungarian forints donated to him by an Orbán-linked supporter. The task Magyar and his government face is huge. His promises to fix the country’s crumbling public services will come up against the country’s stagnating economy and a stubbornly high budget deficit. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how the many Orbán loyalists in media, academia and the judiciary will react to change. Even so, the mood on Saturday was celebratory in Budapest. At a Tisza booth, crowds lined up to buy party swag, while others milled around waving Hungarian flags. Even as left of centre and liberal parties are set to be absent from parliament for the first time since 1990, Budapest’s liberal mayor was swift to call on Hungarians to come together to mark the end of Fidesz’s grip on power and hail those who had long stood up to the system. “Teachers fired, civilians and journalists humiliated, small churches torn apart,” wrote Gergely Karácsony – who has long clashed with Orbán – on social media. “We can finally leave this era behind us – but first, let us remember the everyday heroes and express our gratitude with a farewell to the system.”

‘This is not another Covid,’ WHO chief tells Tenerife as hantavirus cruise ship heads to island – as it happened

Spain prepares for MV Hodius, the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak, to dock early Sunday in the Canary Islands. Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands have confirmed they will send planes to repatriate nationals from their respective countries aboard the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak. The European Union is sending two more planes for the remaining European citizens, and the US and UK have also confirmed planes and contingency plans for non-EU citizens. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, told the people of Tenerife that risk from hantavirus-hit ship is “low”. “The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” he wrote in a direct message. “But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid.” A three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine kicked off today in time for Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday. The ceasefire will include “a suspension of all “kinetic activity” and a swap of 1,000 prisoners from each country – but the Kremlin warned on Saturday that a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine was still “a very long way” off. Vladimir Putin presided over a notably scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square on Saturday, with the ceremony lasting just 45 minutes - roughly half the length of previous years - as security fears and the realities of a grinding war in Ukraine cast a shadow over celebrations. Though Putin struck a defiant tone, the reality on the ground told a different story. The customary display of missiles and armoured vehicles was absent entirely, replaced by a video showcasing Russia’s drone capabilities and nuclear arsenal. The pro-European centre-right leader Péter Magyar has been sworn in as prime minister of Hungary, marking the official end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power. Saturday’s ceremony – during which Magyar had invited people to join him to “write Hungarian history” together and “step through the gate of regime change” – comes a month after his opposition Tisza party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections.

Danish rightwing leader asked to form government after Frederiksen fails to form coalition

The king of Denmark has asked a centre-right politician to try to form a new government after the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has failed to put together a ruling coalition. The announcement on Friday night shook the political establishment as Frederiksen has been a staple of Danish politics for decades. Her left-leaning party, the Social Democrats, won the plurality of votes in parliamentary elections in March. But despite winning the most votes, it was the Social Democrats’ worst electoral showing since 1903 and no party won a majority. Frederiksen has since tried to form a left-leaning government with the support of Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s centre-right moderates. He is seen as a kingmaker owing to his position in the middle between Frederiksen and Troels Lund Poulsen, the chair of the centre-right liberal party. However, Frederiksen struggled to gather the support of Denmark’s increasingly fragmented parties and on Friday night, Rasmussen, the country’s former foreign minister, walked out of negotiations and threw his weight behind Poulsen. King Frederik then asked Poulsen to try to build a new government. The king issued a statement requesting that Poulsen “lead the negotiations with a view to forming a government”, without the participation of the Social Democrats and moderates. Poulsen will have to marshal a coalition of rightwing parties to form a government – a fragile process that could take weeks. Already, the attempt to build a government has been the longest in Danish history. Danish politics has skewed increasingly right in recent years, with the March elections showing gains for several rightwing parties. The traditional far-right party, the Danish People’s party, had a particularly strong showing, tripling its votes from the last election to 9.1%. Immigration has become a hot topic in Denmark, as in other European countries, and even left-leaning parties have adopted stricter policies on immigration control. The king’s statement indicated that the Danish People’s party had pushed for Poulsen under the condition that the new government had “the explicit goal of introducing measures that will lead to Muslim net-exodus of Denmark”. After a meeting with the king on Friday afternoon, Frederiksen indicated that there was a growing possibility of a rightwing coalition governing Denmark. Frederiksen said: “The Danes … have composed the [parliament] in such a way that a rightwing government can absolutely be formed. It might very well be that what we are seeing now is in fact the beginning of that.” Frederiksen is popular for her handling of Donald Trump’s attempt to acquire Greenland, resisting intense pressure and threats from the US administration. However, Frederiksen performed much poorer on domestic issues, such as taxation and immigration. Analysts said that while Frederiksen was down, she was not out. If Poulsen failed to pull together a coherent coalition among the rightwing parties, the prime minister could return with a coalition of her own.

Neither US nor Iran can sustain strait of Hormuz standoff indefinitely

Exchanges of fire between Iran and the US demonstrate the serious instability of the situation in the Middle East. Though the US strikes late on Thursday were just “a love tap”, according to the US president, Donald Trump, the reality is that neither side can continue the high-stakes standoff in the strait of Hormuz indefinitely. The US and its ally Israel demonstrated a comprehensive military superiority over Iran – taking minimal casualties in the 38-day war – but Washington has both failed to translate that into strategic dominance and allowed Iran to take control of the strait, driving up the oil price. The most significant development this week was the collapse of Trump’s Project Freedom on Tuesday after just 50 hours. The unilateral US proposal had sought to create a safe zone for merchant shipping on the southern, Omani side of the strait using more than 100 fighter jets and several naval destroyers. Two merchant vessels took advantage. It ended amid objections from the Saudis, who were not consulted before the launch. Riyadh refused to allow US access to its airspace and bases, concerned Project Freedom could end up restarting the full-scale war. It was also not discussed with major shipping companies and it was unclear whether it would be effective. Richard Meade, the editor of Lloyd’s List, a specialist shipping industry title, said this week: “No major industry organisations that we are aware of have been approached by the US to set up any sort of briefing session. “Security teams in the region remain unclear what’s happening and no ship owner I have spoken to in the past 24 hours has any confidence that this changes anything.” Iran retains the ability to threaten and inflict damage on tankers passing through the strait of Hormuz and effectively halt all other shipping. More than 1,550 vessels remain trapped in the Gulf, while on Wednesday and Thursday no merchant ships transited the strait, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Burcu Ozcelik, a Middle East expert with the Royal United Services Institute thinkthank, said: “Iran has proven to be a formidable adversary, in that it has demonstrated resilience that many who should have known better didn’t predict. “Trump wanted a quick win, and was not prepared to commit the substantial military force that would have been required to dislodge the regime properly.” Though its decision-making appears fragmented and the health of the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, still publicly uncertain, most assessments are that the Tehran regime has, for now, been entrenched by the bombing campaign launched by the US and Israel. CIA assessments leaked this week suggest it retains 70% of its missiles, 75% of its launchers; it may also retain half its Shahed attack drones. Iran appears confident in pushing back against US demands for a total end to its nuclear weapons programme, which includes calls for a dismantling of its nuclear sites, a 20-year moratorium on enrichment and a handover of its near weapons-grade uranium. It can see that Trump appears unwilling to restart a full bombing campaign, perhaps in the light of depleted high-end US missile stocks, down by anywhere between a quarter and a half during the $25bn (£18bn) Epic Fury campaign. Diplomats who have dealt with Iranian negotiators complain that Tehran loves to act as if it has endless time. It does not. The parallel US blockade to the east of the strait, where two US carrier strike groups are now operating, also prevents Iran from exporting its crude. US Central Command has turned back 52 vessels since 13 April – and there are reports from within Iran of rising inflation, unemployment and unpaid wages. On Wednesday Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, sought to shore up Iranian resistance, arguing that the US was seeking “to destroy the country’s cohesion” through “a naval blockade, economic pressure and media manipulation”. A US intelligence assessment, leaked to the Washington Post this week, suggested Iran could endure three to four months, then face more severe economic hardship. Iran has no close allies at this moment of isolation. China is believed to be supplying drone parts, similar to its help to Russia, and there have been reports that it may try to covertly send Tehran handheld air defence systems, but this is basic defensive weaponry. A presentation from Russian GRU military intelligence for Iran, seen by the Economist, suggests Moscow could send 5,000 fibre-optic drones – weapons only likely to be useful against US ground troops, should they seize an island in the Gulf. In any event, it is not obvious how any military escalation helps Iran. The country’s – and the regime’s – ability to endure the US blockade is impossible to predict, but simply hanging on could be an economic disaster for its people. “It is the insurgent’s dilemma,” says Ozcelik. “At first to survive is to win, but there’s always a point when that is no longer enough. When Iran gets to that point, we don’t know.” Trump, however, is fickle and impatient. The US president has the political problem of needing to resolve an economic crisis he essentially created – while showing progress on the nuclear issue. Higher inflation is already affecting large parts of the world economy, and the impact of oil shortages is particularly acute in Asia. It is an unstable outcome, and still, two sets of militaries face each other, locked and loaded.