What We Know About Cruise Ship's Deadly Outbreak

A polar expedition has turned into a tense waiting game for cruise ship passengers after a rare virus outbreak blamed in three deaths. Coverage:

• The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is currently anchored off the coast of the West African nation of Cape Verde. About 150 people are aboard, including 17 Americans, reports CNN. Cape Verde won't allow the ship to dock as health authorities scramble to assess the situation. The cruise is operated by Oceanwide Expeditions,
• Passengers are isolating in their cabins, reports the AP, which obtained video from one of them. "Our days have been close to normal, just waiting for authorities to find a solution," said the passenger, 31-year-old Qasem Elhato, via WhatsApp. "But morale on the ship is high and we're keeping ourselves busy with reading, watching movies, having hot drinks, and that kind of thing."
• "What's happening right now is very real for all of us," said travel vlogger Jake Rosmarin in another video, per Reuters. "We're not just headlines," added a clearly distraught Rosmarin. "We're people with families, with lives, with people waiting for us at home." Reuters notes that Rosmarin posted video from one island visit earlier this week—three weeks after the first passenger's death. But authorities had yet to make the connection to hantavirus and lock down the ship.

• Three people—a Dutch couple and a German citizen—have died in the outbreak, and at least four people are sick, per the AP. Hantavirus is typically spread via exposure to rodent droppings, though human-to-human transmission is possible and under scrutiny here, given the ship's close quarters. The World Health Organization "assesses the risk to the global population from this event as low," the agency wrote on social media.
• The ship left Ushuaia, Argentina, about three weeks ago on a route that included Antarctica, several South Atlantic islands, and a planned final stop in Spain's Canary Islands. It was not immediately clear when the ship would be allowed to dock somewhere—likely the Canary Islands—to let passengers disembark. First, two ailing crew members must be evacuated.
• There is no specific treatment for hantavirus, and the US has logged fewer than 900 cases since surveillance began in 1993, according to a separate explainer in the New York Times.