The ship at the epicenter of the Honta virus outbreak has been evacuated on Spain's Canary Islands.

Sixteen Americans have now been transported to a specialized quarantine unit in Omaha, Nebraska.

Two are at a similar unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Health officials confirm that one American and one French national aboard the ship have tested positive for the virus,

and another U.S. passenger is showing mild symptoms. So far, the virus has claimed the lives of three people,

including a Dutch couple and a German citizen. Our William Brangham gets answers now to the latest questions.

Jeff, 16 Americans will remain under observation for up to six weeks at a special medical facility

at the University of Nebraska Medical Center that has a biocontainment unit.

U.S. health officials today explained why this location was chosen.

It is designed to house a large group of patients or passengers from a plane or a ship like

what we have now to monitor and assess them.

If they get symptomatic, become sick, they can be moved into the bio-containment system and have a

higher level of care. Right now, they're just being monitored and assessed.

Six U.S. states are now monitoring residents connected to the cruise ship as other evacuated

passengers return to their homes. So to learn more about this virus and what we can expect,

we are joined again by Dr. Ashish Jha. He's with the Belfour Center for Science and International Affairs

at Harvard's Kennedy School, and previously was the White House COVID-19 response coordinator

during the Biden administration. Dr. Jha, always great to have you back.

With regards to this, international and American health officials keep telling us that the risk

to the public remains very low, but we did see with this particular strain of this virus

that it was spreading from human to human.

And there are some reports that it may not even take close contact with an infected person to get infected yourself.

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