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Dr. Nirav Shah is the former head of the Maine Centers for Disease Control and deputy principal Director at the U.S. CDC. He is an attorney, economist, and public health leader. He is running for governor in the June 9 Democratic primary.
Three people have died, and at least eight others are infected, in an ongoing outbreak of the Andes hantavirus strain on a cruise ship in the Atlantic. While this outbreak doesn’t have the markings of the next global pandemic, we all should be paying attention for two reasons.
First, this particular strain is the only hantavirus strain known to be capable of spreading from person-to-person. Second, it’s happening on a cruise ship. When you combine a virus with a 30 percent or higher fatality rate, human-to-human transmission, and confined quarters, the risk is real.
But again, while it is unlikely this outbreak becomes the next global pandemic, it’s a warning sign spotlighting a growing truth: we are not prepared for the next one.
Pandemics are not necessarily once-in-a-century events. Recent research has estimated the chance of another COVID-19-like pandemic at 28% within the next decade and 38% in our lifetimes. And yet, at the very moment we should be strengthening our defenses, the Trump administration has instead become a cataclysmic wrecking ball.
Since coming into office, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., have purged vaccine experts, withdrawn the United States from the WHO, and terminated research on lifesaving vaccines.
In no small way, the Trump administration has systematically dismantled the very infrastructure that exists to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks. And Maine has already felt the impact of those deadly choices.
Late last year, the Maine CDC requested urgent federal assistance to combat the largest HIV outbreak in state history in Penobscot County. The request was initially approved, then placed on hold because of the federal government shutdown. Mainers who asked for help got nothing.
Under Secretary Kennedy, our public health has become political theatre that increasingly follows ideology instead of science. And our nation’s public health infrastructure, which has proactively protected generations of Americans, is under direct threat.
This year alone, the U.S. saw the worst measles outbreak in more than 20 years on top of one of the worst whooping cough outbreaks in years, and one of the worst flu seasons in years.
While the current hantavirus outbreak is not likely to become the next pandemic, we should nevertheless heed its warning.
Leadership matters, and Secretary Kennedy is rolling the dice with American health – even as the U.S. prepares to host large-scale events and mass gatherings like the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
So what can we do?
Last September, nine former directors and acting directors from the CDC wrote an essay for the New York Times explicitly calling on state and local governments to “fill funding gaps where they can” to maintain public health security.
The scientists and career experts at the CDC working on this current outbreak are among the best in the world. The problem is not a lack of expertise. It is a lack of leadership at the top.
President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization and dismantled many of the public health “watchtowers” that help detect and contain outbreaks before they spread. The result is that America risks becoming one of the last countries to know when a threat is emerging, rather than one of the first to act.
In an outbreak, lost time costs lives. And when the next pandemic comes, there will be no time to rebuild trust, restore broken systems, or recover the capacity we allowed to disappear. The decisions that determine whether Maine is ready, or left exposed, must be made now.
