Cruise ships have zero appeal and this latest outbreak of hantavirus aboard the MV Hondius confirms my negative view. These ships have grown to gargantuan proportions since the days of The Love Boat, although the Hondius is relatively small for a cruise liner these days. I guess sailing across the Atlantic requires a more nimble ship than the typical floating casino hotel. What pleasure can you have on a ship this size of the Bellagio? The Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas can house up to 7600 guests with a crew of over 2000. By comparison an aircraft carrier hosts between 4500 to 6000 military personnel. You put that many persons in such close quarters you have a contagion waiting to happen.
The passengers were quarantined on Cape Verde as three deathly ill persons were evacuated from the ship, along with three bodies. All others were tested for the virus before the ship sailed onto Gran Canaria. Normally a hantavirus can only be passed from rodent to human but there is a special strain of this virus found in Argentina, where this ship debarked, that can pass from human to human. The remaining passengers will be closely monitored for days to come so that hopefully we don't see a spread of this disease in the 23 different countries these tourists hail from, including the United States.
As we learned from COVID, it doesn't really matter where the virus starts from. As soon as it begins to spread it is very difficult to contain and this hantavirus poses a serious threat. WHO is cautiously optimistic at this point that the virus is contained, but then we have a Health and Human Services secretary who likes to eat roadkill.
RFK Jr. may very well breed a hantavirus of his own. After all, he and other members of the Trump administration are best buddies with the chainsaw-wielding President of Argentina. Here is Bobby with Javier Milei in Buenos Aires last year. Argentina has reported over 100 cases of hantavirus since June 2025. Bobby was in the country the month before. No telling what he found on the side of the road and brought home with him or had Javier fry up at his palace. He looks like the kind of guy who would enjoy seasoned roadkill too.
We are still living in pandemic times largely because countries like the United States aren't taking the necessary precautions to ensure against another massive outbreak. You have guys like Bobby and Mehmet Oz who thought the vaccines were overrated and that they should no longer be mandated in public schools, except measles apparently. The Great Oz vociferously said we should guard against measles after more outbreaks in 2025. Bobby has long claimed that the MMR vaccine, which guards against measles, mumps and rubella, causes autism. If they can't effectively guard against diseases long thought eliminated then what can we expect from the Health and Human Services Department when it comes to deadly hantaviruses?
For every step forward, we appear to take two steps backward, especially when we allow clowns to run the show. How on earth we have reached this stage of devolution is beyond me. For the most part we have social media to thank as we see the latest quack theories promoted by social influencers while science and medicine are called into question repeatedly. It was bad enough to go through this during the height of the COVID pandemic but here we are five years later acting like it never happened. All those lives lost for nothing. RFK Jr. fired all the leading immunologists, like Susan Monarez, because they dared to challenge his unorthodox views. He seems to think exercising and taking a hot sauna in a pair of jeans with Kid Rock is enough to guard him against any flu. The video went viral.
Jonas Salk would roll over in his grave. How long before we see the return of polio? There was a time when we understood the benefits of scientific research. We may have pitched a fuss about taking so many shots as a little kid but we accepted it as part of growing up. Science was good. Science helped to battle a world filled with deadly viruses that could inflict untold misery, pain and death. We even had a president who suffered from polio and did his best to disguise the paralytic effects. You could say he was lucky as many others had to live like this for the rest of their lives.
There seems no break in sight as social influencers garner far more social media currency than do respected immunologists, who are more often subpoenaed by Republicans to ferret out conspiracy theories in their response to COVID. Anthony Fauci remains a favorite target and because of this Biden was forced to give him and other members of his staff "pre-emptive pardons" so that Trump wouldn't seek criminal charges against them. This is truly sad given Fauci had given all his life to preventing and if necessary containing deadly viruses, not planting nanochips in vaccines, one of the more popular conspiracy theories. As Reagan once said,
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