Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered Angela Perryman, a 47-year-old American exposed to hantavirus on a cruise ship, to remain in quarantine in Nebraska on Monday, overruling a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that she be allowed to isolate at home in Florida.
Kennedy’s order, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, directed Perryman to stay in the Nebraska quarantine unit even though a review from the CDC said she should be permitted to go home. Perryman is one of more than a dozen Americans exposed to hantavirus aboard a cruise ship earlier this spring. The group had initially been placed at a Nebraska quarantine unit. The World Health Organization had recommended that people with high-risk exposure undergo quarantine at home or in a facility for 42 days “as a precautionary measure” because of the long incubation period of the virus.
In a phone interview, Perryman called the quarantine order “ridiculous.”
“I’m in a room 23, 24 hours a day,” she said. “It does not serve public health.”
Perryman said her quarantine was set to end on Sunday after 42 days. She had expected some of the nine others in quarantine with her to head home this week. She said she believed Kennedy’s order was retaliation for speaking out against the quarantine measures.
“I’m the only one here involuntarily,” she said.
Representatives for the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.
Two CDC employees said Florida had refused to meet the Trump administration’s requirements for home monitoring, which included 24/7 surveillance of the person to ensure compliance. The employees added that CDC experts on infection prevention and control, including quarantine requirements, disagreed with the decision to force Perryman to remain in Nebraska.
Hantavirus, a disease carried by rodents, typically does not spread between humans. The Andes strain, which has left three people dead amid this outbreak, is the exception, but the CDC has maintained that the overall risk to the American public remains extremely low.
Some of the other passengers left the facility in recent weeks after the Trump administration asked their home states to heed certain requirements to continue monitoring them at home, including 24/7 surveillance. Florida refused to meet those requirements, according to the two CDC employees.
The Trump administration’s aggressive approach to isolation requirements amid the outbreak has surprised public-health experts, given that several of the administration’s top health officials have a history of criticizing pandemic-era restrictions.
Perryman said she thought the quarantine rules had “been inconsistently applied from the very beginning.” She described being locked in a room where workers bring her three meals a day. She can request an hour outside on the roof where she can take off her protective gear and sit in a chair, spaced far apart from others.
Perryman said she is “not good at all” but has been able to stay connected with her family over the phone to help keep her going. She said that when she is released, she plans to fly home on a commercial flight to Florida, where she lives part time. Once home, she said she plans to “put my feet in the grass and dirt, maybe even touch a tree.” She said her primary residence is in Ecuador.
Before she retired, Perryman said her job was to ensure the health and safety of oil and gas workers. She used to work for the federal government and later helped plan the Ebola response in Chad, according to the CDC’s medical report viewed by the Journal.
The CDC’s medical review, written last week by a doctor in the agency, said that while it is possible Perryman had the virus, the chances for her to develop symptoms were decreasing with time. Kennedy said in his order that despite the doctor’s report, Perryman was reasonably believed to be infected with or exposed to the disease.
“He’s not following the doctor’s orders,” Perryman said.