U.S. Monkeypox Outbreak 2022: Situation Summary Updated July 12 , 2022
Introduction:
U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) Overview
CDC is tracking an outbreak of monkeypox that has spread across several countries that don’t normally report monkeypox, including the United States.
People with monkeypox in the current outbreak generally report having close, sustained physical contact with other people who have monkeypox. While many of those affected in the current global outbreaks are gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men, anyone who has been in close contact with someone who has monkeypox can get the illness.
To learn more about recommendations for those who may have had contact with someone who has monkeypox, visit Exposure Risk Assessment and Public Health Recommendations.
CDC is urging healthcare providers in the United States to be alert for patients who have rash illnesses consistent with monkeypox, regardless of whether they have travel or specific risk factors for monkeypox and regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
CDC is working with state and local health officials to identify people who may have been in contact with people who have tested positive for monkeypox, so they can monitor their health.
CDC recommends vaccination for people who have been diagnosed with or exposed to monkeypox and people who are at higher risk of being exposed to monkeypox.
nearly nobody is talking about it over here, and of the people who do know about it there's already some stigma of it being what happens when one engages in 'sinful' behaviour.
so I really don't have much hope for this getting any effort from anyone to prevent it becoming a much bigger problem.
Ken_J wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:49 pm
nearly nobody is talking about it over here, and of the people who do know about it there's already some stigma of it being what happens when one engages in 'sinful' behaviour.
so I really don't have much hope for this getting any effort from anyone to prevent it becoming a much bigger problem.
I don't know how you can acknowledge stigma and in the same sentence post a disinformation pundit with a reactionary title. There is no scientific basis for the media attention on LGBTQ+ communities ...
And again, I agree with you that the government isn't going to do anything to stop this. What I don't understand is the need for a homophobic angle to make that statement. The reason "nearly nobody is talking about it over here" is because most people on this forum understand why the information as it is being presented is not constructive to a discussion about monkeypox.
You seem to have difficulty in understanding the difference between stating what the narrative is and advocating the narrative, and also seem to be struggling with the understanding of perception not matching facts.
It doesn't matter if you agree with it, that is literally what comes up as a look at monkey pox, without even searching for the term. It has a monopoly on the disease narrative right now.
Rightly or wrongly it informs thoughts and opinions on the topic to those that know nothing about it.
It is not the only source working this narrative.
The situation is, whether you like it or not, one in which the majority of the narrative reaching the public is that there is a new disease that is being spread in the gay male population being spread through hook up gatherings. You can complain all you want about it being the narrative, but that does not change the fact that it informs that indifferent at best and 'serves them right' at worst mentality that is ongoing and will be how this illness is percieved and handled at all levels of society.
Just have a solid look at the fact that Covid "doesn't hurt children and mainly will only be a threat to the elderly and disabled" was paraded out early on and informed so much of how society handled that crisis in the early days. To and how after years, there are still people convinced it was just a cold, or that it's okay to let elderly and disabled people die so long as it doesn't hurt their ability to get a mochachino and a manicure.
The playing off of this disease mirrors things like teen pregnancy, as something that happens to sinners who don't abstain and maintain purity standards. And it follows the path of dismissing HIV in the early days (although hopefully this will be far less lethal an not become chronic or recurring) based on it's perception as a homosexual only disease.
That's exactly how I see this playing out. and going forward I see two possible outcomes. 1) it spreads and the majority of people recover, and it burns out of the population with death and disability numbers low enough that nobody remembers this in a decade. 2) It spreads at a smouldering rate, and finds resivours in animal populations to become something like the measles outbreaks that have resulted from antivaxxers in the last decade. becoming something that is just another disease that sees outbreaks everywhere from time to time, but which straight white christian populations will continue to imagine doesn't happen to them and only happens to 'naughty people'.
Ken_J wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:49 pm
nearly nobody is talking about it over here, and of the people who do know about it there's already some stigma of it being what happens when one engages in 'sinful' behaviour.
so I really don't have much hope for this getting any effort from anyone to prevent it becoming a much bigger problem.
I don't know how you can acknowledge stigma and in the same sentence post a disinformation pundit with a reactionary title. There is no scientific basis for the media attention on LGBTQ+ communities and I STATE AGAIN that had this virus spread from a cishet sex party no one would dare point the finger and go, "MONKEYPOX SPREADS AMONG WOMEN AND MEN WHO HAVE SEX WITH WOMEN AND MEN!" The prejudice should be apparent to everyone who engages honestly as to why this is a problem.
I think you point your finger at a very important distinction that needs to be made. It is not homosexual conduct that puts folks at greater risk. It is rather multiple partners over a relatively short period of time. Although there is/was much controversy on the subject, I think more or less the same thing can be said of AIDS. The sexual revolution and the subsequent (relatively speaking) acceptance of homosexuals IMHO were very much tied together. The clandestine life that gays felt forced to live strongly discouraged monogamy in sexual relations. That proved fatal when AIDS hit. Subsequent acceptance, among other things, allowed and encouraged monogamy, or at least serial monogamy. That is also effective in slowing the transmission of sexually transmitted disease such as AIDS.
I apologize in advance if I have written anything that comes off as being politically incorrect. It is a very difficult topic for a heterosexual to write about without getting something wrong. I can only add that I lost friends who were homosexual during the eighties. To this day, I don't know if it was because of my own ignorance, or if it was because they died of AIDS. In either event, it was a personal loss for me, although not as great a loss as for their loved ones.
Ken_J wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:49 pm
nearly nobody is talking about it over here, and of the people who do know about it there's already some stigma of it being what happens when one engages in 'sinful' behaviour.
so I really don't have much hope for this getting any effort from anyone to prevent it becoming a much bigger problem.
...
1) it spreads and the majority of people recover, and it burns out of the population with death and disability numbers low enough that nobody remembers this in a decade. 2) It spreads at a smouldering rate, and finds resivours in animal populations to become something like the measles outbreaks that have resulted from antivaxxers in the last decade. becoming something that is just another disease that sees outbreaks everywhere from time to time, but which straight white christian populations will continue to imagine doesn't happen to them and only happens to 'naughty people'.
Your point about the perception that this sort of thing only happens to "naughty people" is well taken. Such a disease can immediately spread to monogamous heterosexuals. Sexual contact is simply not the only means of transmission. I probably should have made that clear in my earlier post.
1) it spreads and the majority of people recover, and it burns out of the population with death and disability numbers low enough that nobody remembers this in a decade. 2) It spreads at a smouldering rate, and finds resivours in animal populations to become something like the measles outbreaks that have resulted from antivaxxers in the last decade. becoming something that is just another disease that sees outbreaks everywhere from time to time, but which straight white christian populations will continue to imagine doesn't happen to them and only happens to 'naughty people'.
Your point about the perception that this sort of thing only happens to "naughty people" is well taken. Such a disease can immediately spread to monogamous heterosexuals. Sexual contact is simply not the only means of transmission. I probably should have made that clear in my earlier post.
HIV had incidence of spread among the drug use community, "naughty people" again, and sex workers, as well as non-hetero folks. If I remember things correctly there were also cases caused by blood transfusions. And one of the first things they taught in first aid classes was to be very careful with anyone bleeding or giving mouth to mouth, precisely because sex was not the only way of transmitting it.
Cases of HIV were also supposedly a risk for children born to mothers who were infected. Often considered high risk based on substance abuse history, sex work, or relations with men who themselves engaged with those communities.
It took a straight celebrity who was diagnosed with it to make people start to consider that the idea of the disease as something that only selected the 'naughty' as targets. And let me tell you that was not an immediate reveal, nor an immediate rethinking on the public opinion. There was, and probably remain to a much diminished degree now, suspicion that it's proof they were not straight, or that they were a drug user or got it from sex workers.
the monkey pox does not need to be spread by sex, but sex is a form of interaction that does spread it. Just like cold sores or shingles. When my chickenpox virus reactivated as shingles it could be easily spread, while not an 'STD', sex could definitly spread it to those not vaccinated against chicken pox or who haven't had it. (and while sex is the best known vector of transmission for HIV it can be spread through other means, though not as easily as monkey pox). I mean how many of us have heard of Mono as the Kissing disease? as if that was the only way anyone ever contracted it and new indications of it maybe playing a roll in progressive nerordegenerative disorders points to the hazard of playing off the spread of such 'non-lethal' illness with narratives built on beliefs that inform the response to addressing the illness. (not that the debilitation of chronic fatigue resulting from mono was ever really motivation enough to get any efforts put into confronting that illness either)
Add to this the fact that in many cases a monkey pox survivor can simply never tell anyone they had it, and they likely won't have any continued complications or risk of transmission after full recovery...
The narrative of it's means of spread and those who get it will exist in the realm of rumor and conspiracy theories. And there will be no urgency in addressing the course of the illness.
Well, I think we can hopefully say that as bad as this is, and it's the freaking worst cause school kids, only a right out idiot can try to spin that one on gay men.
Re: Monkeypox outbreak
Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:02 pm
by caltrek
Monkeypox Virus is Frequently Detected in Saliva, Semen and Other Clinical Samples from Infected Patients July 14, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) Viral DNA can be frequently detected in different clinical samples from monkeypox-infected patients, including saliva and semen, according to a new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, and the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. The study, published in Eurosurveillance, contributes to a better understanding of how this emerging disease is transmitted.
…
In this study, the team led by Mikel Martinez, ISGlobal researcher, and Jose Luis Blanco (Hospital Clinic), investigated the presence of genetic material of the virus in different biological samples, collected at different times, from 12 patients with confirmed monkeypox infection. At the time of diagnosis, a high viral DNA load was detected in the skin lesions of all patients. In addition, DNA was detected in the saliva of all cases, some of them with high viral loads. Only one previous study had tested saliva, in one single patient. Viral DNA was also detected in rectal (11 of 12 patients), nasopharyngeal (10/12 patients), semen (7/9 patients), urine (9/12 patients) and faecal (8/12 patients) samples.
"A couple of previous studies had already shown occasional presence of viral DNA in some samples and in some patients, but here we show that viral DNA is frequently present in various biological fluids, particularly saliva, during the acute phase of the disease, and up to 16 days after the onset of symptoms in one patient," explains Aida Peiró, first author of the study.
The authors point out that the presence of viral DNA does not necessarily mean infectious virus, and that the next step will be to try to isolate infectious virus from such samples. However, the high viral load detected in saliva or semen suggests that such fluids have infectious potential, they add.
"The results of our study contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms and dynamics of virus transmission, as well as the possible role of sexual transmission," Martinez concludes.
The U.S. Monkeypox Response Is Not Going Well. Did We Learn Nothing from Covid? by Jackie Flynn Mogensen
July 15, 2022
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Two months after monkeypox reemerged in the United States this year, health officials and physicians are reporting delays and limited availability of tests, vaccines, and treatments against the virus. For many working in healthcare, it’s déjà vu.
At the start of the Covid pandemic, you may recall, the federal government struggled to provide Covid testing across the country. (My colleagues put together an extensive timeline of the Trump administration’s early pandemic response, or lack thereof, here.) But unlike Covid, monkeypox isn’t new to the world (it’s considered endemic in parts of Africa). So at least in theory, the US could have been well-prepared for an outbreak.
Now, monkeypox has infected about 1,500 people across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with hotspots in New York, California, and Illinois. So far, the virus has spread primarily among men who have sex with men, but the CDC cautions that anyone who has close contact with someone with monkeypox can contract the virus, which causes smallpox-like symptoms including fever, headache, chills, and a pimple-like rash. No deaths have been reported in the US.
The Biden administration, for its part, says it is "incredibly focused" on issuing vaccines and is working on expanding testing. But many experts are expressing their frustration with how slow the process has gone.
First, there's the vaccine: As CNN reported on Thursday, there are approximately 1.5 million people who are eligible to receive Jynneos, a vaccine that protects against monkeypox and smallpox. So far, more than 132,000 doses have been distributed, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, but health officials on the ground say it hasn't been enough. “We got an allotment of 200 vaccines," Dr. David Holland, the chief clinical officer of the Fulton County, Georgia, Board of Health, told CNN, "and the appointments for that went in about an hour and a half."
caltrek wrote: ↑Sat Jul 16, 2022 3:05 pm The U.S. Monkeypox Response Is Not Going Well. Did We Learn Nothing from Covid? by Jackie Flynn Mogensen
July 15, 2022
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) Two months after monkeypox reemerged in the United States this year, health officials and physicians are reporting delays and limited availability of tests, vaccines, and treatments against the virus. For many working in healthcare, it’s déjà vu.
At the start of the Covid pandemic, you may recall, the federal government struggled to provide Covid testing across the country. (My colleagues put together an extensive timeline of the Trump administration’s early pandemic response, or lack thereof, here.) But unlike Covid, monkeypox isn’t new to the world (it’s considered endemic in parts of Africa). So at least in theory, the US could have been well-prepared for an outbreak.
Now, monkeypox has infected about 1,500 people across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with hotspots in New York, California, and Illinois. So far, the virus has spread primarily among men who have sex with men, but the CDC cautions that anyone who has close contact with someone with monkeypox can contract the virus, which causes smallpox-like symptoms including fever, headache, chills, and a pimple-like rash. No deaths have been reported in the US.
The Biden administration, for its part, says it is "incredibly focused" on issuing vaccines and is working on expanding testing. But many experts are expressing their frustration with how slow the process has gone.
First, there's the vaccine: As CNN reported on Thursday, there are approximately 1.5 million people who are eligible to receive Jynneos, a vaccine that protects against monkeypox and smallpox. So far, more than 132,000 doses have been distributed, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, but health officials on the ground say it hasn't been enough. “We got an allotment of 200 vaccines," Dr. David Holland, the chief clinical officer of the Fulton County, Georgia, Board of Health, told CNN, "and the appointments for that went in about an hour and a half."
The fact that covid is spreading in another huge wave with the most contagious variant to date and most people in my state stopped wearing masks early last year and never put them back on, that very many (including my sister and her family) are unvaccinated (no surprise she and her husband caught covid back in January), and even fewer still have been boosted, I feel highly qualified by experience right now alone that no, no we have not learned at all from covid.
Hell, most people here still claim that covid is no worse than the flu and that the reported deaths have been greatly exaggerated for political reasons.
Honestly it's getting to the point where I'm truly starting to believe that humanity rightly and richly deserves this pandemic and worse.
Re: Monkeypox outbreak
Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2022 9:16 pm
by wjfox
So that's it, then. Another serious health issue we'll be dealing with for many years, possibly the rest of our lives.
Probably followed by a bird flu pandemic at some point, and then viruses unleashed from melting Siberian permafrost, alongside a growing wave of antibiotic resistance.
Re: Monkeypox outbreak
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 2:42 am
by erowind
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Re: Monkeypox outbreak
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 8:46 pm
by caltrek
CDC Report on Monkeypox Cases in the United States by State. Updated July 15, 2022.
State of Residence Cases
Alabama 2
Arizona 11
Arkansas 2
California 266
Colorado 20
Connecticut 12
Delaware 1
District of Columbia 108
Florida 154
Georgia 93
Hawaii 8
Idaho 1
Illinois 174
Indiana 11
Iowa 3
Kansas 1
Kentucky 3
Louisiana 6
Maryland 37
Massachusetts 51
Michigan 13
Minnesota 12
Missouri 4
Nebraska 2
New Hampshire 1
New Jersey 31
New Mexico 5
New York 489
Nevada 6
North Carolina 13
Ohio 7
Oklahoma 3
Oregon 21
Pennsylvania 43
Puerto Rico 4
Rhode Island 4
South Carolina 4
South Dakota 1
Tennessee 6
Texas 76
Utah 13
Virginia 44
Washington 41
West Virginia 1
Wisconsin 6