A hobbled CDC faces hantavirus outbreak

The images were hauntingly familiar, as individuals clad head to toe in personal protective equipment — including masks and gowns — emerged from the Dutch cruise ship at the heart of the hantavirus outbreak. The passengers including three New Yorkers were headed to locations in Nebraska and Georgia to quarantine.

Scientists agree that this time is different. While the current hantavirus strain known as Andes can spread human-to-human, it isn't COVID-19, the experts say. The risk to the general public is "very, very low," one U.S. health official assured. This is not, they repeat, another pandemic.

We assume that assessment is correct. But when the nation's public health infrastructure has been badly eroded, it's difficult to know whom to trust and where to find reliable information. That leads to increased uncertainty and worries.

The current outbreak exactly illustrates why we need dependable, trustworthy and science-based leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services and all of its arms, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The cruise ship-born hantavirus outbreak, which has killed three and sickened at least five others, presents some very real concerns. In Nebraska, 15 individuals remain in a quarantine unit, while one — who tested positive for the disease — is in a biocontainment unit. Two more passengers are in an Atlanta biocontainment unit, as one has symptoms and the other is a close contact of the symptomatic individual.

While the CDC has categorized this as a low-level threat, its public response has been underwhelming. The agency's first outbreak-related news conference finally came Monday morning — nine days after the World Health Organization confirmed hantavirus cases and deaths. Later Monday, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised they were on top of the situation.

Their comments ring hollow. The United States withdrew from the WHO in January, leaving the nation without critical resources, data and connections. Internally, the CDC lacks steady, scientific leadership as its staffing and research have been decimated. Beginning with cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and continuing with Kennedy's efforts, the CDC has reportedly lost up to a third of its staff — thousands of employees — since President Donald Trump took office. According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, that includes cruise ship inspectors and port health workers. What's more, the CDC is on its third head in less than a year, with acting leader Jay Bhattacharya, a longtime pandemic policy critic, simultaneously manning the National Institutes of Health.

While this hantavirus is not COVID-19, what we did learn from that tragic experience is that we need to be prepared when the next pandemic — whatever the cause — hits.

Does the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention actually have the ability and stature to control or prevent disease?

The answer is a frightening one: We don't know.