U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week refused to release a cruise ship passenger exposed to hantavirus in early May from a quarantine facility in Nebraska — despite a federal medical review that said there's no need to confine her far from her Florida home.
The order from Kennedy, one of the nation’s most prominent critics of vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other government public health restrictions, spurred outrage from some advocates and legal scholars, who called it illegal and rooted in politics rather than public health.
