I did this 2 1/2 years ago with Covid. That did not turn out so well. I am hoping for better this time around. So here goes.
This is the key part IMHO:
There is one confirmed positive case in Massachusetts. There is one presumptive positive case in New York, one in Washington state, two in Utah and two in Florida.
This places cases on both coasts, nd north and south. Unless there is a tie connecting these cases, we may have a problem. Currently being painted as an AIDS-style “Gay Plague” which is pretty damned shitty, as this has never been described as a STI previously. Not a case for panic by any stretch, but I would definitely be aware and keep an eye on it.
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For any interested, Ars’ Dr. Beth Mole did a nice condensation of the current state of knowledge around monkeypox at the moment:
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71 cases reported, in total, in the UK today.
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Ah yes. I remember when there was “1 case” of COVID in New Rochelle, NY. That number lasted about 5 minutes. good times…
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Well, it’s in VA now. Likely local spread, so there is that. Fuuuuuck.
Oops, further info
Recent travel to Africa, but this is a woman, for whatever that’s worth.
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The good news is Doc choose a great band name for this thread.
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And the CDC is now coming around to “Yeah, we are probably seeing community transmission.” The R0 on this beast is really too low to make it a Covid level threat, there is an effective vaccine, although the side effects can be brutal. My worry is more around the fact that mistrust of science and healthcare is so deeply embedded in this country at this point that this really could get a foothold and cause problems. Current evidence suggests it is the less-lethal West African variant, which is good. Pox viruses are known to be fairly stable and so endless streams of new mutations should not be an issue. More inconvenient than horrible, but given the experience of the last couple years, you can see where healthcare folks are more than a little spooked at this development.
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well, you have to basically roll around with a person’s oozing pus to get infected. more or less.
I can’t square that assertion with the spread we’ve seen. It seems to me that there’s something to learn from this outbreak.
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Nope
https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/transmission.htmlhttps://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/transmission.html
Respiratory droplets can also do the job. Nowhere near as easily as covid, as far as we know currently, but prolonged face-to-face contact can spread it as well.
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Theres some nutjob local to me now posting stickers all over the place claiming that:
“The government is using covid vaccines to spread monkeypox”
I now carry around a permanant marker pen and obliterate them on my way to work…
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The point is you have to have close contact for a length of time. It’s not as infectious as covid.
I’ve been social distancing LONG before covid. I have a PhD is keeping away from people.
Are people very sloppy ?
yes, they are.
I keep away from them.
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Continued spread, but not explosive growth. Likely to remain a PITA for a while, but my biggest worry is “certain folks” using this as a cudgel to beat LGBT+ folks. I see it coming…
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Monkeypox outbreaks: 4 key questions researchers have (nature.com)
The linking of cases to sexual activity doesn’t mean that the virus is more contagious or is transmitted sexually, however — just that the virus spreads readily through close contact, Rimoin says. Unlike SARS-CoV-2, which isn’t thought to linger on surfaces much, poxviruses can survive for a long time outside the body, making surfaces such as bedsheets and doorknobs potential vectors of transmission, Roper says.
Also,
Palacios says, is that few resources have been dedicated to genomic-surveillance efforts in Africa, where monkeypox has been a public-health concern for many years. So virologists are in the dark, because they have few sequences to which they can compare the new monkeypox sequences, he says. Funding agencies have not heeded scientists, who have been warning for more than a decade1 that further monkeypox outbreaks could occur, he adds.
Systemic racism raises it’s butt-ugly head again.
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