Coronavirus and You - Page 606

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped up its monkeypox guidance, urging travelers to take extra precautions including wearing face masks as global cases of the virus surpass 1,000.

The CDC ramped up its alert to a level 2 on Monday, encouraging people to "practice enhanced precautions" to stem the outbreak, which has spread to 29 non-endemic countries in the past month. The highest level alert — level 3 — would caution against non-essential travel.

On June 07 2022 21:14 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
CDC raised the alert level for the Monkeypox outbreak to 2 and now recommends masks while travelling and avoiding sick animals & people.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/06/07/cdc-raises-monkeypox-alert-as-global-cases-surpass-1000.html

Quebec began offering a smallpox vaccine to certain close contacts of infected people in late May, and the Health Ministry says it has since vaccinated 813 people.

On June 02 2022 03:35 Sermokala wrote:
Mass testing (as long as its free) isn't a zero-covid strategy its just the cheapest strategy to mitigate massive outbreaks by having the information about whats going on.

On June 10 2022 04:44 Slydie wrote:


Except it isn't. Denmark tried exactly that, mandating biweekly testing for anyone working or going to school for long stretches of time, testing around 10x as many as other western countries, who also teste a lot. Many got problems in their nose by all the stick-digging up there.

Did it prevent outbreaks in any meaningful way? Not at all! The tests are not accurate enough, and you can never test people often enough to make sure nobody is infected. Once a critical mass of infection is out there, mass testing did very little, and it should be debated if it was worth the cost.

I have taken my last COVID test unless I am absolutely forced to. I had a lot of faith in mass testing once, not anymore.

I am ok with getting another vaccine shot, though, at least until it is certain that infections are really better for you long term, which we won't know for years.

On June 15 2022 03:29 Magic Powers wrote:
"WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that it was time to consider stepping up the response because the virus is behaving unusually, more countries are affected, and there is a need for international co-ordination."

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-set-decide-if-monkeypox-represents-health-emergency-2022-06-14/

I'm not sure why it took them so long to realize how urgent the situation is. Experts should've predicted weeks ago that the spread was going to get a lot worse, and some probably did.


Also, the virus has a very high mutation rate that is very unexpected, this fact was also known weeks ago. Only the cause (and impact on the spread) of these mutations is uncertain.

"Based on normal evolutionary timelines, scientists would expect a virus like monkeypox to pick up that many mutations over perhaps 50 years, not four, Neher said."

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-set-decide-if-monkeypox-represents-health-emergency-2022-06-14/

On June 15 2022 09:55 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:

It seems very mild at this stage, over 1000 cases outside Africa and no deaths yet.A guy on the Monkeypox subreddit posted images of his confirmed Monkeypox infection and it looked like a couple of cold sores on his chin.Nothing too crazy.

Also he was a gay chap, currently this seems to be mostly affecting gay men, hence the WHO putting out Monkeypox health advice specifically for gay and bisexual men https://www.who.int/news/item/25-05-2022-monkeypox--public-health-advice-for-gay--bisexual-and-other-men-who-have-sex-with-men

WHO will be changing the name from Monkeypox shortly because it’s racist apparently.
https://time.com/6187445/monkeypox-who-rename-stigma/?utm_source=reddit.com

Speaking to reporters, Dr. Theresa Tam said 112 cases of the disease have been detected across the country — 98 in Quebec. There are nine cases in Ontario, four in Alberta and one in British Columbia.

Tam said all of the patients are males between the ages of 20 and 63. The majority of them had sexual contact with other men.

On June 15 2022 16:23 Magic Powers wrote:
The virus is already spreading much more evenly across the whole population.

On June 15 2022 23:39 Magic Powers wrote:
The common variable for monkeypox infections is not sexual orientation, but close physical contact.

With HIV it's similar, the common variable is not sexual orientation, but anal sex, which is more common among gay couples. That's why straight people who perform anal sex also get AIDS at a much higher rate than those who don't.