Federal mandatory quarantine order issued for American cruise ship passengers exposed to hantavirus outbreak

The federal government has issued a mandatory quarantine order confining American passengers from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak to a facility in Nebraska. The ship departed Argentina in April 2026 and resulted in at least three deaths. Passenger Angela Perryman, who had minimal contact with an infected person and shows no symptoms, contests the confinement despite acknowledging the virus's severity. She had proposed home quarantine with daily monitoring in Florida but was legally prevented from leaving. Federal health law experts support the CDC's authority based on person-to-person transmission risk, while civil liberties lawyers argue insufficient evidence supports such restrictive measures without demonstrating passenger non-compliance with less invasive alternatives. This marks only the second mandatory federal quarantine order in approximately 50 years.