The mood inside the National Quarantine Unit was electric with despair and fury.
It was May 17, six days after United States health officials had evacuated 18 Americans from the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak that had killed three people, and taken them to the special facility in Omaha, Neb., for what they had said would be a quick 72-hour evaluation before the passengers could go home to quarantine.
None of them had tested positive for the virus but now, an official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. David Fitter, was telling them on a video call that they would not be permitted to leave for at least two more weeks.
These were people who had paid thousands of dollars for a cruise through uninhabited regions, in pursuit of exotic birds and animals. They chafed against the loss of fresh air, nature and, most of all, their freedom.
“I’m asking you, as a scientist and a human,” a passenger with a red-headed woodpecker as his Zoom icon said to Dr. Fitter, on a copy of the video call viewed by The New York Times. “Do you think that this is really a sensible decision to keep me here in this room that’s making me sicker day by day, being here when I could be home isolating in a perfectly reasonable situation?”
Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Dr. Fitter responded: “I think that the best that I have for you right now is that I will pass this up.”
News of the outbreak aboard a cruise ship, with its echoes of the early days of the Covid pandemic, alarmed people around the world. The little-studied Andes hantavirus has a mortality of nearly 40 percent among hospitalized patients, prompting countries to evacuate their citizens from the ship and monitor them for 42 days, the incubation period for the virus. Some were initially held in official facilities. But American health officials had the strictest rules over the long term, holding people in the quarantine unit despite recommendations from C.D.C. scientists that they be allowed to self-monitor at home.
Over the course of their enforced quarantine in Omaha, some people grew increasingly belligerent, some sedated themselves with alcohol and a few came perilously close to a mental health crisis, according to the passengers and staff at the center. One, Angela Perryman, had to remain at the facility after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overruled the C.D.C.’s own assessment that she could safely quarantine at home.
In the end, they stayed for 21 to 42 days. None of them were infected with the virus.
Now back to their old lives, eight recounted the experience in detailed interviews with The New York Times. (Some asked to be identified only by first names or initials because they did not want to be associated with the outbreak.)
All of them said their experience was traumatizing. With one notable exception — Jake Rosmarin, 29, an influencer who documented his stay — they expressed a profound sense of unease with the federal government keeping them against their will. Some noted that the officials enforcing their confinement, including Mr. Kennedy and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the C.D.C.’s acting director, were people who had railed publicly against less restrictive public health measures imposed during the Covid pandemic.
“It’s certainly mind-blowingly hypocritical for the nation’s most prominent advocate of quote-unquote medical freedom to now be abusing his public health authority to jail American citizens,” said Jonathan Slifkin, 30, a birder from New York.
“This is a civil liberties violation,” he said.
The Department of Health and Human Services defended the agency’s decisions and handling of the quarantine.
“Thanks to the leadership of Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Bhattacharya and the coordinated efforts of C.D.C.’s public health professionals and partners across the federal government, the United States concluded its Andes virus response WITHOUT a single U.S. case or any community spread,” Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement.
Deadly odyssey
The MV Hondius departed Ushuaia, at the southern tip of Argentina, on April 1 for its Atlantic Odyssey, a coveted trip for many birders. In the first week, several passengers came down with a respiratory illness and when an older Dutch man died on April 11, no one suspected an exotic virus.
It was only on May 2, after a sick British passenger evacuated from Ascension Island tested positive for the Andes hantavirus, the only subtype known to spread among people, that they realized what they were facing. Soon after, health officials from numerous countries began making plans to evacuate their citizens.
American officials transported the passengers to Omaha on May 11. At first, the passengers were told they could choose to stay for the 42-day quarantine or leave if they tested negative and self-monitor at home, as dozens of people had successfully done in the U.S. in 2018 after being exposed to the same hantavirus. Indeed, nine other Americans who had disembarked from the cruise ship on April 24 had been quarantining at home.
Mr. Rosmarin, who gained thousands of new followers after posting a terror-filled video from the ship, opted to stay in Omaha and document his time. Several others including Nikki, a 35-year-old sales agent for polar expeditions, decided to stay because they did not have access to a separate bathroom per the C.D.C. recommendation for quarantining at home.
But about half readied themselves to leave soon after arrival. On that tense Zoom call on May 17, the news that they were not free to go anywhere until at least June 1 came as a shock.
“So we are all just prisoners here, of our own device?” one later asked in a group text chat, alluding to the Eagles song about the Hotel California, from which one can never leave.
That night, when officials checked in on a visibly upset Mr. Slifkin at his room, he asked them what they would do to stop him from walking out and moved toward his door as if to leave. The officials said the armed guards at the center would likely arrest him and urged him to calm down so no one would get hurt.
He and Ms. Perryman then demanded and received their quarantine orders, which declared that “C.D.C. may legally hold you in quarantine until it finds that you are no longer at risk of becoming ill and spreading Andes virus to others.” Most others, too, were angry, but were afraid to speak out.
They might have reacted better had the government been clear from the start what was in store for them, said David, a retired software developer.
‘Solitary confinement’
The quarantine unit in Omaha comprises 20 rooms in a University of Nebraska building, and is staffed by medical personnel at the university who volunteer to help. They are skilled at managing patients and pathogens, but perhaps less so at catering to healthy individuals with wanderlust.
The rooms had harsh lighting, a bed with a plastic-covered mattress, a desk, a television, an exercise bike and a bathroom. The building is on a slope, so while Dr. Steve Kornfeld, a retired oncologist, had a room with four large windows, Mr. Slifkin’s room was “dungeony,” he said, with a single small window. Apart from two daily temperature checks and food deliveries, the passengers could not have visitors or leave their rooms for any reason.
They had to leave most of their luggage behind when they left the ship — most finally got theirs back in early July — taking only one small carry-on bag. Once in Omaha, they were allowed to order anything to make their stay comfortable; the government would pay for the purchases. (The Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman declined to answer questions about cost.)
To pass the seemingly interminable hours, some read, edited photos and did puzzles. A few tried to entertain themselves with a friendly bird-watching competition, but those with more windows had a clear edge. “This is NOT fair,” one complained on their group chat after another rattled off a half-dozen exotic birds he had spotted. “Half of my window is below ground.”
Kenneth, a retiree from Arizona, spent “far too much time” reading Facebook comments urging the passengers to “do the right thing,” he said. But, he added, “No one really stops to consider what is actually involved in doing the right thing, and whether or not they themselves would be willing to give up their life for six weeks.”
Staff from the quarantine unit tried to ease their ennui, arranging for tai chi lessons, trivia games and lectures on topics like the Nebraska prairie, but all on video.
“You never know what might help just a little bit to reduce the stress of the situation and help people get through it,” said Dr. Michael Wadman, the quarantine unit’s medical director. But the sessions were sparsely attended.
Meals from the cafeteria were delivered to their rooms, but often not what they had ordered, and frequently arrived cold and congealed, at random times, they said. There were dozens of options for dessert, but only a couple for vegetables. After the first week, local restaurants began delivering lunch and some passengers doubled up on those orders to avoid the cafeteria dinners.
“I felt bad, because here’s a quarantine center, and I can’t, I shouldn’t be complaining about food,” said C.S., a wildlife biologist. But, he added, “it does make you feel even more out of control.”
As the days rolled on, the isolation took its toll. “It wasn’t a prison, but I felt like a prisoner,” Dr. Kornfeld said.
Ms. Perryman grew increasingly angry and told some of the staff they needed to examine their moral choices.
“You are running a prison,” she said she told them. “You’re not doing something good and humanitarian.”
Some university staff members were so upset by those interactions that they have decided not to volunteer to work at the quarantine unit again, according to people with knowledge of the developments who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
It was May 23, nearly two weeks after the passengers arrived, before any of them were allowed outdoors, and another week before everyone got a chance to do so. The staff had to take into account the building’s other occupants and the rigorous decontamination required after every outing, officials said. Passengers got 45 minutes of outdoor time on the roof, in masked groups of four, once or twice a week and under supervision. Over his six-week stay, Mr. Rosmarin said, he went outside five times.
“It was harder than I think I recognized at the time,” said Nikki, who said she took to downing a couple of cocktails every night before bed.
More surprises
As May 31 grew closer, the passengers who wanted to go home grew increasingly worried that federal officials would spring yet another surprise.
Their fears came true on May 27, when C.D.C. officials said states would be required to post a law enforcement officer outside the passengers’ homes for the remainder of quarantine order, until June 21. The agency later revised the plan, calling for 24/7 monitoring by a health worker, after states pushed back.
At least two states, New York and Florida, refused to comply with those requirements for bringing the passengers home. Mr. Slifkin, who had been counting down the days to return to New York, was devastated. He stopped accepting food from the staff, and said he would kill himself if he could not go home.
Alarmed, Dr. Wadman and his colleagues pleaded with the office of Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York to let Mr. Slifkin go home. New York eventually agreed, and Mr. Slifkin and several residents of other states that had agreed to the requirements left the facility on June 1.
But Florida did not budge. When Ms. Perryman, a Florida resident, disputed her quarantine order, the C.D.C.’s medical reviewer recommended that she be allowed to return home with remote symptom monitoring once daily. Arguing that keeping Ms. Perryman in Omaha was “necessary to protect public health,” Mr. Kennedy overruled that recommendation, and signed an order to continue quarantining her.
That action shocked even those passengers who until then had understood why the government was being overly cautious. “My biggest worry is like this: setting a precedent for the government depriving citizens of their freedoms against expert medical advice,” C.S. said.
Many of those who were allowed home before the full 42 days were escorted by private flight and ambulances, police cars and medical personnel. One state had a nurse drive 40 minutes each way to spend three minutes taking a passenger’s temperature twice a day. Others had passengers take their temperature on video, but then wave from their doorway to a parked officer to confirm they were at home. Some allowed them to walk in their neighborhood with an officer trailing behind, but others forbade them to leave their homes.
On June 21, quarantine ended and the last passengers headed home.
The birders are back in nature, but many said they are unable to shake their disquiet from the experience. “Yes, the public would be more protected if everybody’s locked up who’s any risk to the public,” Dr. Kornfeld said. But, he added, “at what point do you take people’s liberties away in order to make that statement?”
