WASHINGTON — Acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jay Bhattacharya said in Washington that the hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship poses a low risk to the broader public and that the agency is responding in a measured way. The outbreak has been linked to at least three deaths and 10 confirmed or suspected cases aboard the vessel, which had been sailing the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's very different than COVID, and we should treat it differently than COVID," Bhattacharya said. "Unlike COVID, the way that people get it from person to person is much, much more difficult for that to happen."

The strain identified on the ship is the Andes strain of hantavirus, which can spread between people but requires prolonged close contact with someone who is ill, according to health officials. The United States has been tracking the outbreak for several weeks and is collaborating with state and local health departments, the World Health Organization, and foreign governments on the response.

Eighteen American passengers who were aboard the ship returned to the U.S. on Monday and are being monitored at medical facilities in Nebraska and Georgia.

He said the CDC does not want to cause unnecessary panic when communicating potential dangers to the public. "The key thing is that we should be keeping the public aware of when there's actually threats to them, not causing the public to panic, not speculating about things that haven't happened, or potentially could in some universe happen. And being very, very clear about what we know and don't know, and also by responding appropriately when there is a risk, just as we've done," he said.

Bhattacharya also leads the National Institutes of Health. He made his remarks in a media appearance this week.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, criticized the Trump administration in a media appearance this week over last year's cuts to the CDC's Vessel Sanitation Program, which investigates outbreaks and conducts health inspections on cruise ships. Schumer used the word "incompetence" to describe the administration's handling of the program. "The very CDC inspectors and port health workers we need to track this virus, the people whose entire job is to keep deadly diseases off cruise ships and out of our country, Donald Trump fired them," Schumer said. "This White House will tell you the risk to Americans is low. They have made it impossible to find out."