The virus that will soon be formerly known as Monkeypox is continuing to spread in mysterious ways around the planet — we say formerly since the World Health Organization said they will soon rename the ailment to reduce stigma.
Perhaps “stigma” could be a good name for it?
Or maybe we can actually just go with mousedrops instead? After all they help spread it too?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance this week about how to identify monkeypox during this outbreak, based on the symptoms doctors have observed so far.
Some recent infections have presented differently than past cases in Africa, where monkeypox is endemic in 11 countries.
This virus appears to be very different from what spread before — perhaps even, dare we say, new?
Doctor John Campbell, who became famous for us and the world during COVID, has previously said monkeypox was not going to become a pandemic. Today Campbell released a video in which he was surprised on the amount of mutations the virus has in the UK.. he said this is odd because monkeypox is a DNA virus, which normally mutate slowly. Rapid mutations occurred in RNA viruses like COVID, but not monkeypox.
Campbell said there is yet to be evidence that the virus has been lab manipulated, but he seems to be keeping his mind open..
At the moment, the spread seemingly is primarily in male homosexual communities. *at the moment* ..
At this point, UK data suggests that nearly 98% of those interviewed with monkeypox reported having engaged in homosexual sex prior to catching the virus..
With that in mind, the CDC has produced some pamphlets on how to have sex during monkeypox.
This is real, by the way.. very real:
Among her advice was also to have sex with your clothes fully on, to make sure all rashes are covered and even to avoid kissing.
Another tip was to wash your hands, fetish gear, and clothes immediately afterward and even consider having sex virtually, such as over the phone.
People contract monkeypox by touching infectious skin lesions, but it can also spread through the air during ‘sustained’ face-to-face contact..
Airborne, you say? NAH.. the CDC has downplayed down. Unless it is “sustained,” we suppose.
Traditionally, people with monkeypox have developed a fever, swollen lymph nodes, headaches and muscle aches, followed by a rash that starts on their face or in their mouth then spreads to other parts of their body — particularly the hands and feet.
In many recent U.S. cases, patients first experienced a rash in the mouth or around the genitals or anus. And instead of widespread rashes, some patients saw scattered or localized lesions in areas other than the face, hands or feet. In some cases, flu-like symptoms developed after the rash, but other people didn’t have those symptoms at all.
FAILED TESTING
There are some questions as to how far and wide monkeypox has already been silently spreading. If we are relying on testing, then Houston we have a problem!
While government labs have the capacity to test as many as 8,000 samples a week, they’re only using 2% of that capability, suggesting that about 23 monkeypox tests are being performed a day, said James Krellenstein, the cofounder of PrEP4All, an HIV advocacy group..
Testing is so limited that it’s impossible to tell how much of the virus circulating in the US is being picked up, said Ranu Dhillon, an infectious disease doctor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. It could be 90% or just 10%, he said…
The fact that the incubation period for monkeypox being 21 days is adding more of a problem for contact tracing potential.
THE NEXT SMALLPOX?
Back in 2003, when a mini outbreak occurred in the midwest, an op-ed ran in the LA TIMES wondering if monkeypox would be the next smallpox..
At that time, it was acknowledged that monkeypox was only able to spread to humans if they came in contact with an infected animal, like a rat that occurred in 2003. The fear was a mutation that would be the ‘big jump’ out of ‘the bush.’ The article concluded this way:
“There isn’t much money for surveillance, or much concern about a disease that seems remote to us, even though we are nicked once by a brief encounter with a milder strain. But we are all inhabitants of a single planet, and the evolution of a new form of human poxvirus, remote and unlikely though it still seems, has the power to affect us all.”
Are we at that point now?
