When Jake Rosmarin boarded the MV Hondius, he gleefully posted on social media that the ship would be his home for 35 days as he traveled across the South Atlantic.Now, he is one of 18 Americans under observation at specialized healthcare facilities designed to treat people with dangerous infectious diseases after three people died and others were sickened by a hantavirus outbreak aboard the ship.Rosmarin, 30, said he expects to spend 42 days at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.Fourteen other American passengers from the ship are also there. Another who tested positive for the virus is in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit. Two were being monitored in the serious communicable disease unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.Public health officials have said the risk of the virus spreading from passengers into the general public is very low and that healthy people are being quarantined as a precaution.
Rosmarin, a content creator and photographer from Boston, told The Associated Press he intends to make the best of his isolation.His room is more like a small hotel suite. He has a closet, smart TV, bathroom, small refrigerator, bed, chair and stationary bike. He has windows, but he keeps the blinds closed from peering media.
