‘The CDC Is Not Even a Player’ in the World’s Hantavirus Response; Schools and Colleges Deal With a Big Ransomware Attack–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: May 11, 2026

Indy Digest: May 11, 2026

There’s been a lot of news about hantavirus as of late, and throughout all of the coverage, several themes emerge:

• While Hantavirus can be deadly, the virus is not another COVID-19—largely because it’s much, much harder to transmit from person to person. “There is nothing to fear; the risk is low; this is not another COVID,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, to The Associated Press.

• Nothing about the cruise-ship outbreak is particularly abnormal. “There may be more cases among passengers because symptoms can take weeks to appear, but the risk to the broader public remains extremely low and the virus continues to behave exactly how experts would expect Andes hantavirus to behave,” said Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, aka “Your Local Epidemiologist” on Substack and various social-media platforms.

• The United States’ response has been slow—and that’s an understatement.

Here’s the start of an Associated Press piece, published over the weekend, on the U.S. response:

No quick dispatching of disease investigators. No televised news conference to inform the public. No timely health alerts to doctors.

In the midst of a hantavirus outbreak that involves Americans and is making headlines around the world, the U.S. government’s top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been uncharacteristically missing in action, according to a number of experts.

To President Donald Trump, “We seem to have things under very good control,” as he told reporters Friday evening.

To experts, the situation aboard a cruise ship has not spiraled because, unlike COVID-19 or measles or the flu, hantavirus does not spread easily. It has been health experts in other countries, not the United States, who have been dealing primarily with the outbreak in the past week.

“The CDC is not even a player,” said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Not until late Friday did CDC actions accelerate.

One reason for the slow U.S. response can be found in a 13-month-old news item, headlined “CDC’s cruise ship inspectors laid off amid bad year for outbreaks.” As reported by CBS News on April 10, 2025:

All of the full-time employees in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vessel Sanitation Program are now off the job, multiple officials tell CBS News, gutting the agency’s ability to investigate outbreaks and conduct health inspections on cruise ships. A smaller group of 12 U.S. Public Health Service officers will remain.

The steep cuts to the program’s inspectors baffled CDC officials since the small team’s staff is not paid for by taxpayer dollars. Fees from cruise ships companies pay for the program, which is supposed to inspect large vessels at least twice a year.

The epidemiologist tasked with leading the agency’s outbreak response on cruise ships was included in the layoffs, multiple CDC officials said.

The cuts come as the U.S. has been battling a record surge of norovirus, largely driven by a new strain of the virus.

The U.S. is no longer a leader in international health. We’re now a follower—dependent on experts elsewhere.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• When I saw this headline, I literally did a spit take: “Trump Media, Parent of Truth Social, Reports Q1 Sales of $871,000 and $405.9 Million Net Loss.” Variety reports: “Trump Media and Technology Group, operator of social-media platform Truth Social, reported a massive net loss for the first three months of 2026 and less than $1 million in total sales. For the first quarter, TMTG generated net sales of $871,200, up 6% year over year. The company reported a $405.9 million net loss and a $387.8 million adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) loss for the first quarter of 2026. The vast bulk of the losses were ‘non-cash losses including unrealized losses on digital assets, digital assets pledged, and equity securities ($368.7 million), accreted interest ($11.5 million), and stock based compensation ($11.8 million),’ the company said in a press release. The earnings report comes after last month’s sudden departure of Devin Nunes, a Republican former U.S. Representative from California who had served as CEO of TMTG since 2022. The company appointed Kevin McGurn, who has been an exec at companies including Hulu, Vevo and T-Mobile … interim CEO with Nunes’ exit.”

• A software used by numerous schools and universities was the target of a ransomware attack last week—and the hackers claim to have stolen a lot of personal data. Mashable explains: “The hacking collective ShinyHunters says it disrupted a major education platform not once but twice over the past few weeks. And the data breach could not have come at a worse time for students and teachers. These events unfurled during school finals at many of the affected institutions. On April 30, Instructure, the edtech company behind Canvas, the popular Learning Management System (LMS) utilized by educational institutions around the world, temporarily went offline. A day later, Instructure confirmed that a ‘criminal threat actor’ was behind a data breach into the company’s systems. According to ShinyHunters, the group stole data from 275 million Canvas users at nearly 9,000 schools worldwide. The affected users include students, teachers, and staff, and while no passwords or other sensitive data were taken, the data stolen was significant. The hackers claimed usernames, email addresses, student IDs, and private messages exchanged on the platform were part of the stolen data. Some of the impacted users are underage students. … Just one week later, ShinyHunters says it hit Canvas again. This time, the hackers compromised school-specific login pages for the platform and defaced the pages with messages threatening to publicly release the stolen data from the previous breach unless Instructure agreed to ‘negotiate a settlement.’”

• The company behind the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has a reputation for cracking down on any group that uses “-chella” without their permission—including small nonprofits. Detroit MetroTimes reports: “A Dearborn animal shelter raising money for homeless dogs and cats has been forced to rename its upcoming “Pawchella” fundraiser after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the company behind Coachella, one of the world’s most famous music festivals. Friends for Animals of Metro Detroit said it will change the name of the June 13 event, which is still scheduled to take place from noon to 8 p.m. at the MaryAnn Wright Animal Adoption and Education Center, 16121 Reckinger Rd. in Dearborn. The shelter said it was unaware that ‘Chella’ was trademarked by the owners of Coachella, the massive annual music and arts festival held in the Southern California desert city of Indio. The festival, launched in 1999, draws some of the biggest names in music and pop culture and is owned by Goldenvoice, an AEG Presents company tied to billionaire Philip Anschutz. For Coachella, the issue was brand protection. For the shelter, it was a playful name for a fundraiser with food, music, raffles, and rescue animals. ‘We had no idea of the trademark and never had any intention of infringing on it,’ Cory Keller, president and CEO of Friends for Animals of Metro Detroit, tells Metro Times. ‘As soon as we became aware of the issue, we made the decision to change the event name immediately, even with only a month left before the event.’”

• Our partners at Calmatters examine the battles being waged over the money held by the state’s two largest public pension funds: “The boards at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System are facing campaigns from groups that want them to pull money out of companies associated with the Trump administration, scale back investments in fossil fuels and break with private equity firms over their labor records. The list includes electric car maker Tesla, surveillance company Palantir, private companies that operate immigrant detention centers, ExxonMobil, Chevron and private equity firm Apollo Global Management. To some extent, divestment campaigns are routine business at CalPERS and CalSTRS, which hold assets worth a combined $1 trillion and are headquartered in the capital of a deep blue state. But the combination of Trump-era politics and a concerted push by labor in the Legislature to force the pension funds to open the books on private equity holdings is attracting the focus of a more diverse mix of advocates. ‘It’s politics,’ said Richard Costigan, a Republican who served on the CalPERS board from 2011 to 2019 as an appointee of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. ‘When you look at Palantir and Tesla, it’s driven by politics. Seriously, why would you not invest in Palantir?’ The rebuttal: Despite their earnings and stock value today, the companies affiliated with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement program are taking on serious reputational risk that could backfire on the funds.”

• Today’s recall news involves … dog food! Fox business says: “An Indiana-based company is voluntarily recalling one of its dog food products due to potential salmonella contamination. Albright’s Raw Pet Food of Fort Wayne is recalling one lot of its Chicken Recipe for Dogs Complete and Balanced product after routine sampling by the Food and Drug Administration found one composite sample testing positive for salmonella. … The recalled products are sold as frozen 1-pound bricks in clear vacuum packaging, and are generally distributed in 30-pound cases, the company said. One lot of the product is affected and was sold directly to consumers nationwide and to select retailers in California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New York, South Carolina and Wisconsin and by direct online sales.”

• And finally … when the apocalypse is nigh, there’s a chance the world’s richest and most powerful people may know it’s coming before those of us who are commoners. This is the idea behind a fascinating project by an artist/computer programmer. The Washington Post reports: “Kyle McDonald … has created what he calls an Apocalypse Early Warning System by tracking private jets around the world. If a large number of jets suddenly flee city centers, transporting their likely affluent passengers to bunkers and isolated resorts, he figures it might be a warning sign for the rest of us. ‘I want people to laugh. I hope they see it and they feel the sort of humor of our situation—that we’re locked in a battle between the ultra-wealthy and the working class,’ McDonald said. ‘And remember, there’s still things we can do. We’re not completely downtrodden and lost of all hope.’ McDonald’s project uses publicly available flight data to track the locations of private and business charter jets, planes often boarded by the super rich, and chart a ‘historic emergency level.’ It looks at how many planes are flying at one time compared to a baseline and rates it on a scale of 1 to 5. If the level spikes, McDonald’s system can warn followers by text or email. The apocalypse tracker hits on a growing divide and sense of resentment between working and middle-class Americans and the very, very rich. In the U.S. alone, the top 1 percent of the population holds 31.9 percent of total wealth, according to the Federal Reserve. The bottom half holds 2.5 percent.”

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