Monkeypox: WHO convenes emergency meeting as UK cases 'double'

Telegraph (Limey) ^ | 05/20/22

[BusterDog]

Britain's monkeypox outbreak has doubled in size as Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, confirmed the discovery of a further 11 cases on Friday.

Two cases were reported on Thursday, taking the total number to nine, but health authorities said that the number had more than doubled on Friday to 20, leading to fears that the virus is spreading through the country unchecked.

As a result of the rising number of cases, ministers have ordered more stocks of the smallpox vaccine, which is being offered to people who may have been exposed.

[firebrand]

Nice try.

[firebrand]

It doesn’t have to be sexually transmitted.

It can be spread through respiratory droplets or through body sores and body fluids from an infected individual, or even through contaminated objects.

(Today’s New York Times, page 12)

[CatHerd]

Yep, they had a super spreader event. The sort of people who go to those type of events are often there for the orgies and similar “fun” and extremely promiscuous. In addition they engage in certain practices that expose lacerated skin and internal mucous membranes to bodily fluids, ideal for human-to-human transmission of such a virus. On top of that, a significant percentage have compromised immune systems (HIV/AIDS), making them more likely to contract it when exposed.

So yeah, of course it can spread like wildfire in their circles. Tracing might be a challenge as the sort of people attracted to such events are also more !ikely to engage in sex with strangers, including strangers from other countries. But I don’t think those of us outside those circles need to be scared of the monkeypox.

Look how freaked out some people got over monkeypox in November (with the usual posters claiming it was an engineered bioweapon etc.), yet nothing came of it:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4013653/posts

In July of last year, less hysteria over Texas:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3977795/posts

Nobody too concerned in 2018 when it appeared in the UK:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3686345/posts

Notice no airline passengers on the planes with those cases got monkeypox? It’s just not all that contagious.

There were quite a few FR threads on the 2003 monkeypox outbreak in 2003, but Freepers weren’t hysterical back then (FR so different in those days). The 2003 outbreak:

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In 2003, forty-seven confirmed and probable casesexternal icon of monkeypox were reported from six states—Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. All people infected with monkeypox in this outbreak became ill after having contact with pet prairie dogs. The pets were infected after being housed near imported small mammals from Ghana. This was the first time that human monkeypox was reported outside of Africa.

Link: https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/outbreak/us-outbreaks.html

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Obviously none of these outbreaks caused an epidemic, not even the one in 2003. This time, it happened to get into an extremely promiscuous segment of the “gay community” with a highly effective mode of human-to-human transmission (certain practice) and what with sex tourism, several countries involved. Not surprising. Challenging for health officials, though, especially considering the probably some of the cases cannot name their, er, “close contacts” or perhaps even what country they are from.

Another difference is the reaction on FR. So many conspiracy theories making people paranoid.