I saw it a few places too.
We have a global monkeypox tracker:
We’re up to 12 countries with confirmed cases, plus a suspected case in Israel. The 12 are: Spain, Portugal, UK, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Australia, France, USA, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands.
We’re up to 87 confirmed cases and 57 suspected. 146 total.
That of course doesn’t include the ongoing outbreaks in Africa.
I don’t have it in me to follow another one of these.
On a scale of 1-10 how much do I need to worry about this?
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3, imo. At least for right now.
Just sort of analyzing the list, the fact that we see it in Australia already can’t be a good sign. Like the original strain of COVID had an estimated R0 of 2-3, and if I recall correctly, it took a while to get past 2-3 countries. Now, it wasn’t as easy to distinguish a mild covid case from a random cold, and testing wasn’t widespread… Maybe we’re catching all the monkeypox cases and we were catching ~no covid cases, but still…
It’s really hard to expect this to have an R0 < 1.0 and/or little/no human-to-human transmission at this point, right?
The good news is we already have a vaccine that should be 85% efficacious, and I assume most developed countries have large stockpiles of it. The absolute worst case scenario seems to be vaccinating everyone against it over a period of 1 to 3 months and then being fine, so if you can stomach being careful for a few months, then it should be fine.
Now what that does to the economy and supply chains is another story.
Scale of 1-10, my concern about the spread is at like a 6.5/10. My concern for my health and way of life beyond the next ~3 months is like 1/10. My concern financially is in between somewhere.
Sounds like a nuthingburger but I might still prefer covid, given the choice, without having had either yet. Might start boil washing the bedclothes, continuing going commando and steering clear of hotels etc.
Monkeypox can be spread when someone is in close contact with an infected person. The virus can enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract or through the eyes, nose or mouth.
It has not previously been described as a sexually transmitted infection, but it can be passed on by direct contact during sex.
It can also be spread by contact with infected animals such as monkeys, rats and squirrels, or by virus-contaminated objects, such as bedding and clothing.
Most cases of the virus are mild, sometimes resembling chickenpox, and clear up on their own within a few weeks.
In 2003 there was an outbreak in the US, the first time it had been seen outside Africa. Patients caught the disease from ‘close contact’ with prairie dogs that had been infected by small mammals imported into the country. A total of 81 cases were reported, but none resulted in deaths.
I’m at about a 4 until we get hard confirmation of sustained human-human transfer.
The widespread geographical range of the cases confirmed so far doesn’t make human-to-human transfer seem overwhelmingly likely?
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I dunno, there was an outbreak of 70 people all across the Midwest with no human-human transfer. I believe in waiting for confirmation for stuff like this. Should know more in a week.
True but that was all in one region. Even being generous with regions on this one you’ve got:
USA/Canada
UK
Spain/Portugal/France/Germany/Belgium/Netherlands/Italy
Sweden
Australia
Israel
So I guess the question is, could there be some kind of live animal being moved between all those countries in this timespan? Seems unlikely.
The world is besieged by teleporting monkeys and all Joe Biden wants to do is send hard-working Americans’ money to Ukraine and baby formula to Mexico. Thanks, liberals.
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Maybe do a Google image search before declaring it no big deal.
This seems notable, given the timing. Like, there’s a monkeypox outbreak in a random year, what are the odds it’s bioterror? Very very low. There’s a monkeypox outbreak 3 months after Russia invaded Ukraine and threatened the west and it’s not going well, and we know they were working on weaponizing it, what are the odds it’s bioterror? I’m at least removing one “very” in front of the low.
this is an awful source fwiw
The news outlet or the Russian defector?
news outlet
Zilch. We’ve had sporadic monkeypox outbreaks for years. We know it’s endemic in rodents in Nigeria. There’s nothing to suggest this wasn’t a 100% standard spillover event.
Fair enough, I wasn’t sure, but the source they cited seems legit and here’s another report from a more reputable outlet (UPI was founded by Scripps).
There’s no evidence to suggest it’s not a standard spillover event, however, contextually we know from the testimony of that former Soviet guy that the USSR thought process was to have plausible deniability by using a virus that was circulating anyway - this is why they moved away from researching smallpox. We can safely conclude that Russia likely has weaponized monkeypox at its disposal.
Whether or not it’s likely they’d use it is debatable, and I’d typically lean heavily towards no, but they obviously have motive right now. The western world is causing the Putin regime and Russian civilians a lot of economic and quality of life suffering right now.
I don’t think we can put it at zilch. It seems significantly more likely than the lab leak theory on COVID.