Anxious residents in the Canary Islands say the pending arrival of the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius is reviving flashbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic – with some fearing the archipelago will “not be able to cope.”
Fears are rising in Tenerife — the Canary Islands’ largest island — that the Andes hantavirus strain could spread once passengers disembark the vessel and hospitals could be overwhelmed just as they were in 2020, the Independent reported.
Locals are equally bewildered by the Madrid government’s allowing the MV Hondius, which has a 40 percent mortality rate, to dock in the Canary Islands despite the staunch opposition demonstrated by the islands’ president.
“I thought, ‘Why us?” intensive care nurse David Hernández, 29, told the outlet.
“This is bringing back flashbacks of the Covid-19 pandemic. We had a terrible time in the hospital then.”
Candelaria, a cleaner in Tenerife’s north port town Santa Cruz, echoed those concerns.
“It’s not right that [the boat] is stopping here, the passengers should just be sent straight back to their countries,” she told the BBC. “They could infect us. It’s like the pandemic.”
Tenerife has seen significant population growth since 2020 – largely due to an influx of foreign migration.
Hernández admitted how the combination of population growth and potential clusters of cases could stretch infrastructure.
“The population on the island has grown by about a million on the island since the pandemic and we have the same 24 beds in the intensive care unit. I don’t think we can cope,” he said.
“We have been overcrowded for years. It is getting crazy.”
A nurse told the Reuters news agency, “It will be just like Covid… people are worried about their children, elderly relatives and the vulnerable.”
World Health Organization officials have stressed the risk to the public remains low – but locals are baffled as to why the Canary Islands have been chosen as the ship’s destination.
“People are scared, people are worried. Spain is a huge country with plenty of ports where the cruise ship could go,” resident Margarita Maria, 62, said.
The Hondius’ location sparked a political firestorm – with the Canary Islands president, Fernando Clavijo, telling local radio Wednesday, “I cannot allow it to enter the Canary Islands.”
Meanwhile, the Madrid government has said it has “a moral and legal obligation” to help the passengers.
It believes Clavijo is being “irresponsible” by what it perceives as fear-mongering, El Pais reports.
“The concern is understandable, but epidemiological experts are calling for calm,” Ángel Víctor Torres, a former president of the Canary Islands, said as he blasted Clavijo.
The 13 Spanish passengers and one crew member will be taken to the Gómez Ulla Military hospital in Madrid for quarantine.
Asymptomatic foreign nationals will be repatriated back to their countries, the Spanish government confirmed.
“Only those who develop symptoms during the journey from Cape Verde to the Canary Islands will be hospitalized,” the government said.
Around 150 are on board the ship and three people have died so far amid the outbreak, including a Dutch couple and a German national. At least eight have been sickened.
Three suspected hantavirus patients – a German, Dutch and British national – were evacuated from the ship on Wednesday ahead of receiving medical treatment in the Netherlands.
Authorities in Switzerland confirmed a man who left the cruise ship last month tested positive for the virus after exhibiting symptoms.
Meanwhile, US authorities are monitoring residents in Georgia, California and Arizona, who were previously on the ship for any symptoms.
Some passengers have been on board the ship since it began its weeks-long voyage in Argentina on March 20.
With Post wires
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