There are three dead on a cruise ship and nobody really knows what the hell to do with that information. The boat is called the MV Hondius, it was sailing from Argentina to Cape Verde, and now it's anchored off Praia like a dog that can't decide whether to come in or go out. There are a hundred and fifty people inside. Six got sick. Three are dead. And the bug that's killing them is called hantavirus, which sounds like the name of a death metal band but it's actually something older, dirtier, and more honest: it's rat shit getting into your lungs.
That's it. That's the news. While you were paying thirty thousand dollars for an adventure cruise to feel alive, a rat was shitting in some corner of the boat, or on the dock, or on the shore excursion, doesn't matter, and the wind was carrying the dry stuff right up your nose. And in it went. No permission asked. No warning given.
The WHO says there's no need to panic. They always say that. They say it the same way when nothing is happening and when the sky is falling. The risk to the general population remains low, they said. The WHO declared there was no cause for alarm and that the risk to the general population remained low, even as experts were left puzzled about how the disease could have spread on the cruise. Puzzled. That word. The guys with doctorates puzzled, while a Dutch grandmother drowns in her own blood three thousand miles from her living room. CNN
Hantavirus isn't new. It's old as hunger. It's been killing people in South America since before there were cameras to film it. The Andes virus is the only type of hantavirus known to spread from person to person, and that spread is usually limited to people in close contact with the sick person. Close contact. Like a kiss. Like sharing a room. Like a doctor leaning over a dying body in a cabin to take a pulse. That close. CDC
It starts like the flu. These things always start like the flu. Fever, muscle ache, a strange tiredness, the kind of tiredness that makes you think must be the time change, must be last night's wine. And you go on with your life. You hit the buffet. You take pictures of the sunset. And meanwhile, inside, the virus is moving into your lungs like a tenant who breaks down the walls.
Then comes the other thing. The thing that's not in the cruise brochure. The lungs fill with fluid. The heart gets tired. The kidneys start failing one by one like the lights of a building shutting off floor by floor. And in the end you can't breathe. And you think I paid to see penguins, not to die like this. But death doesn't read brochures.
The funny thing, if anything about this can be funny at three in the morning with an empty bottle, is that the infection probably happened on land. An adventure zone where the dead had been is a rat zone with hantavirus, though it's not ruled out that one of them got infected on the boat by rats, or that the doctor got it from close contact with one of the dead. So there it is: they got off the boat to do adventure tourism. To feel like explorers for a while. To step on wild ground in their Merrell sneakers. And the ground stepped on them. Ministerio de Sanidad
There's a lesson here but I don't want to give it. Lessons are for priests and yoga teachers. I'm just looking at the facts: a boat, some rats, some humans too confident, a virus that waited millions of years for someone to come breathe in the wrong place. And the WHO puzzled. And the families of the dead waiting for a body that's coming back in a sealed bag.
Drink water. Close the window. Don't sweep up the mouse droppings, wash with bleach and water, and don't inhale the dust. If you see a dead rodent, leave it alone until you know what to do. And if you're going to get on a cruise, remember this: the ocean is big but the viruses are small, and the rats always, always, get to port first.
I'm pouring another. Cheers.
