President Trump said Monday that the US is being “very careful” about the ongoing hantavirus outbreak after the deadly illness spread among passengers from multiple countries on a South Atlantic cruise.
Trump said the Andes hantavirus strain is “much harder to catch” than COVID-19.
“We’ve, it’s been around for a long time. People are very familiar with it. So, you know, I hope it’s fine. All I can do is everything that a president can do, which is some which is actually somewhat limited, but it seems like it is not easy to spread,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
“It’s in certain ways very hard to spread … We’ve lived with it for years, many years, and we think we’re in very good shape. We’re very careful, and Nebraska has done a fantastic job [isolating returning US cruise ship passengers].”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appearing alongside Trump, said: “We have this under control and we’re not worried about it.”