Social media users are casting doubt and causing confusion about the hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, saying that one of the passengers is a “crisis actor.”
Their posts are focused on Jake Rosmarin, a Boston-based travel content creator who is now quarantining at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
“They’re really working it with these crisis actors,” said a May 6 X post that shared a video of an emotional Rosmarin describing his experience aboard the ship.
Another X post said he “was certainly handpicked for this Honduis-Hanta-CryBaby role” because Rosmarin’s related to people who work in healthcare and emergency preparedness.
Even more posts said footage of Rosmarin urging people to get vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic is evidence his travel on the hantavirus cruise outbreak isn’t a coincidence.
One shared an image of what looks like a man in a hospital bed and said it was Rosmarin — a “much publicised ‘Covid patient.’”
“What are the chances that this guy is always where the current propaganda ‘virus’ is and always photographed or filmed as the victim?” the post said.
We asked Rosmarin about these posts suggesting he’s part of some concerted scheme and did not hear back. But there’s no evidence that he’s a crisis actor, or participating in a nefarious plot.
Rosmarin told the Daily Beast that such claims aren’t based on facts. “People are reacting just to react,” he said.
On April 1, before the MV Hondius departed from Argentina and the hantavirus was detected on board, Rosmarin shared on TikTok that he was going to spend the next 35 days on the ship. The following days he posted multiple videos about his trip.
He posted an update on May 3, after the outbreak was announced, confirming that he was aboard the affected cruise. He posted another video the following day sharing how he felt.
Rosmarin continued posting updates, saying on May 9 that he was going to be sent to Nebraska for “quarantine and testing.” On May 11, he said he had arrived at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha.
So far, three passengers have died from the virus and by May 12, most passengers and crew members had returned home or were in the process of doing so.
Rosmarin, meanwhile, has continued posting videos about what his day looks like at the quarantine facility.
USA Today, ABC News and CNN have reported about the hantavirus cruise outbreak and have interviewed Rosmarin about his experience as a passenger and during quarantine. We found no legitimate news outlet questioning the veracity of his situation.
He also isn’t the only person reporters have interviewed from the ship, as some social media users speculated. We found news reports featuring other passengers including Turkish YouTuber Ruhi Çenet, who also posted on Instagram about the cruise. Çenet shared a photo at the beginning of his trip, and later shared a video about his experience during the outbreak, showing footage of the MV Hondius captain announcing a man had died on the ship.
Rosmarin, who has over 160,000 TikTok followers, has been posting travel photos, vlogs, brand partnerships content, and videos recommending restaurants since at least 2022. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also urged his followers to get COVID-19 vaccines. But that’s not evidence he’s a crisis actor.
Neither is the fact that some of Rosmarin’s family members work in healthcare, emergency preparedness and disaster recovery.
Social media users also wrongly claimed that he was in the photograph of a man in a hospital bed. The BBC published that image in 2022, and the corresponding article says it shows a COVID-19 patient named Henry Dyne from Surrey, England.
Credible information often falls short of what people want to know during breaking news events, and they fill that void with conspiracies, said Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative.
“In these moments, the most important thing people can do is wait for verified information,” Wirtschafter said.
We rate claims Rosmarin is a crisis actor False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on PolitiFact
