MV Hondius Now Empty, Case Count Hits 9 With Confirmed Cases in France and Spain — And Five Americans Who Were Never on the Ship Are Now Being Monitored

The MV Hondius cleared its final six passengers — four Australians, one Briton, one New Zealander — at Granadilla port in Tenerife on Monday evening and sailed for the Netherlands. The ship is gone. The virus is not.

According to the World Health Organization, the case count now stands at nine total: seven confirmed, two suspected. That number has grown since our last report and the new cases are on land, spread across four countries.

France: Deteriorating

French Health Minister Stéphanie Rist confirmed Monday that a French woman who returned home from the ship is isolating in Paris — and her health is deteriorating. French authorities have traced 22 contacts.

A patient is getting worse.

Spain: Disputed Positive

Spain's Health Minister Mónica García announced Monday that a Spanish national evacuated to Madrid has provisionally tested positive for hantavirus, with confirmatory results expected later Monday.

Spain and the U.S. are fighting over the case count. According to Breitbart's reporting, one of the returning Americans was tested in the Canary Islands before boarding their repatriation flight. One lab came back negative. A second lab was ambiguous. The U.S. classified it as a weak positive. Spain's Health Ministry pushed back directly: "The result was considered by the U.S. authorities as a weak positive, although for us it was not conclusive."

This represents a real dispute between allied health agencies.

The Americans: 15 in Nebraska, 2 at Emory

Seventeen Americans were aboard the Hondius. They landed at Omaha Eppley Airfield early Monday morning. Two passengers — one who tested positive, one showing a mild cough that had already subsided by May 6 — were transported in biocontainment units, according to the State Department. Both were transferred to Emory University in Atlanta for further evaluation. The remaining 15 are quarantining in Nebraska.

Matthew Ferreira of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed a British-U.S. dual national is also quarantining in Nebraska.

RFK Jr., speaking at a Monday Oval Office press conference on mental health, said the U.S. has the situation "under control" and that the administration is "not worried" about wider spread, according to The Hill.

Five Americans Who Were Never on the Ship

Five Americans who never set foot on the MV Hondius are now in isolation: two New Jersey residents, two Marylanders, and one Californian, according to the New York Post. All five took international flights that included passengers from the ship. None is showing symptoms.

Fox News separately reported that two Maryland residents are being actively monitored after sharing a flight with a confirmed case.

The virus is generating quarantine cases among people who were never on the ship. The Andes strain is the only hantavirus variant known to transmit human-to-human.

The UK: 45 Days of Isolation

Twenty British nationals, one German resident of the UK, and one Japanese passenger arrived at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside Sunday night. They will spend 72 hours there for medical checks, then self-isolate at home for an additional 42 days.

Professor Robin May, chief scientific officer at the UK Health Security Agency, told the BBC all evacuees are "healthy and asymptomatic." Public Health Minister Sharon Hodgson said the risk to the public remains low.

Two British nationals with confirmed cases are being treated separately — one in the Netherlands, one in South Africa.

What Mainstream Media Is Getting Wrong

Left-leaning outlets like BBC are covering logistics competently but downplaying the France deterioration story and the U.S.-Spain case count dispute.

Right-leaning outlets provide better details on the dispute — Breitbart named the specific lab conflict — but some are using this to attack CDC budget cuts rather than reporting the facts.

The Hill ran a piece featuring Senator Chuck Schumer using the outbreak to attack Trump administration CDC cuts. That's a political story dressed up as a health story.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove from the WHO said Thursday: "This is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently." WHO says risk to the general public remains low. The Andes strain requires close, prolonged contact to transmit — not casual proximity.

What It Means For Regular People

The 30-50% fatality rate of hantavirus is real. So is the fact that it doesn't spread like the flu.

The original group of passengers who disembarked between April 22 and 26 — more than a week after patient zero Leo Schilperoord died — scattered before any quarantine was in place. Officials are still racing to find 40 passengers whose whereabouts are unknown, according to Fox News.

Five Americans never on the ship are already in isolation. A woman in France is getting worse. Spain and the U.S. can't agree on how many cases there are.