Player 2 Has Entered the Game: 7,500 Cases of Monkeypox in US.
I haven't written a Tier Tuesday blog in several weeks. I've been meaning to use the weekly slot to talk about not Coronavirus but another potential pandemic on the horizon. While the Coronavirus pandemic isn't really over so much as it's turning into the Coronavirus endemic it seems that player 2, or pandemic 2, is already entering the game. Monkeypox.
Monkeypox is spreading at a dangerous time. Covid-19 deniers have hamstrung the ability of public health organizations in the government to measure and communicate the degree of the problem. On top of that, Covid fatigue means that far too many people just don't care. They're burnt out. The fact the Monkeypox isn't infecting people left, right, and center- and thank all you hold holy for that, BTW- means they feel it's safe to ignore. But will it become widespread in the future? We could be in another January 2020 right now, when it was unclear whether the not-yet-named Covid-19 would fizzle out as yet another not-really-coming-to-the-US disease or... what it actually turned into.
Arguably it's not even January 2020 anymore for Monkeypox. It could be February or even March already. A report from the CDC yesterday (source: news article published by University of Minnesota, 8 Aug) says that there are already 7,500 cases in the US. This is no longer a hypothetical debate about whether Monkeypox will spread in the US in appreciable numbers; it's already here.
It's important to understand that while some aspects of these two diseases are similar, namely the way they're arguably not being taken seriously enough despite evidence available at the respective moments, they are very different in how they spread. Coronavirus is an airborne virus. You get infected by breathing the same air as someone who's contagious, especially if they're coughing or sneezing a lot because of the virus. Monkeypox, meanwhile, is not airborne. It's spread via prolonged, skin to skin contact.
Another way in which Monkeypox is different from Coronavirus is that we've got a vaccine for it already. That would be great... if there were enough. There's not. In at-risk communities where people are educated about the disease and are seeking protection, there's not enough to go around.
Will our weakened public health institutions be able to rise to this new challenge before it's too late?
Monkeypox is spreading at a dangerous time. Covid-19 deniers have hamstrung the ability of public health organizations in the government to measure and communicate the degree of the problem. On top of that, Covid fatigue means that far too many people just don't care. They're burnt out. The fact the Monkeypox isn't infecting people left, right, and center- and thank all you hold holy for that, BTW- means they feel it's safe to ignore. But will it become widespread in the future? We could be in another January 2020 right now, when it was unclear whether the not-yet-named Covid-19 would fizzle out as yet another not-really-coming-to-the-US disease or... what it actually turned into.
Arguably it's not even January 2020 anymore for Monkeypox. It could be February or even March already. A report from the CDC yesterday (source: news article published by University of Minnesota, 8 Aug) says that there are already 7,500 cases in the US. This is no longer a hypothetical debate about whether Monkeypox will spread in the US in appreciable numbers; it's already here.
It's important to understand that while some aspects of these two diseases are similar, namely the way they're arguably not being taken seriously enough despite evidence available at the respective moments, they are very different in how they spread. Coronavirus is an airborne virus. You get infected by breathing the same air as someone who's contagious, especially if they're coughing or sneezing a lot because of the virus. Monkeypox, meanwhile, is not airborne. It's spread via prolonged, skin to skin contact.
Another way in which Monkeypox is different from Coronavirus is that we've got a vaccine for it already. That would be great... if there were enough. There's not. In at-risk communities where people are educated about the disease and are seeking protection, there's not enough to go around.
Will our weakened public health institutions be able to rise to this new challenge before it's too late?