[iceskater]

You could be right. Our medical system (despite what the democrats say) is the best in the world. Most Americans have access to medical care - even if it starts in the emergency room in some hospital. So, from that perspective, it may not "matter" so much that Monkeypox is now part of our landscape. However, as one Infectious Disease specialist that I work with mentioned, if Monkeypox becomes relatively common and then a smallpox attack is launched, there would be some difficulty for a clinician to determine early on, which pox is present. I would hope by then that some kind of test would be developed that would make it easy to tell quickly and accurately which pox virus is present.

It's also unknown what kind of genetic changes might happen in the monkeypox virus as it jumps from various animal hosts to humans. To me, that's kind of a wild card.

BTW, I don't think Chicken Pox is the same virus family as Monkey Pox and smallpox. I might be wrong on that but I think Chicken pox is in the herpes family and monkeypox and smallpox are in a different family. I am not a clinician so maybe someone else can confirm whether I've got that right or not.

[NYFriend]

I think your right about Chicken Pox being a herpes virus and not related to Smallpox (otherwise Chickpox would protect against Smallpox. I threw that out as an example of a virus that is generally an annoyance, but could be serious in a few cases.