A travel content creator from Boston with more than 70,000 followers on social media is on board the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship and is sharing his experience with followers.
“I’m currently onboard the MV Hondius and what’s happening right now is very real for all of us here,” Jake Rosmarin said in an emotional video on Instagram this week. “We’re people, people with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home.”
Rosmarin appeared in good spirits Saturday, sharing a photo that said, “Feeling good and happy that a plan is now in place.”
On Sunday, passengers and crew are expected to arrive in the Canary Islands to meet Spanish authorities and undergo screenings.
No one currently aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship has symptoms of the virus, according to officials.
Three passengers have died from hantavirus, which is typically spread through exposure to rodent droppings.
According to health experts, symptoms can feel like a bad flu at first.
“It can incubate for a long time, meaning you have no symptoms for up to eight weeks and when symptoms do happen, you can get a fever, stomachache, diarrhea, GI symptoms can feel like a really bad flu but then progress to respiratory failure,” Tufts Medical Center Director of Microbiology Dr. Zoe Weiss said.
Dr. Weiss said it’s reassuring that this particular strain of the virus doesn’t spread from person to person easily.
“It requires close contact with particles from the person who’s sick and even in the close quarters of the cruise ship, only a couple people got sick, so the transmission dynamics do not support a pandemic level concern,” Dr. Weiss said.
The U.S. has agreed to a plan evacuating 17 Americans once the ship arrives in the Canary Islands.
Then, they’ll quarantine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Meanwhile, Rosmarin asks the public to have some sympathy for those who have been unexpectedly stuck at sea.
“Just remember that there are real people behind it and that this isn’t something happening far away, it’s happening to us,” he continued on social media.
More than two dozen passengers who already left the ship at the end of April are being monitored by health officials.
Boston 25 News has reached out to Rosmarin in hopes he will share his experience with us directly.
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