The next plague? Not really

monkey pox cases are causing non experts to worry, but actually it is mild... and not easy to catch, which is why one wonders about the question of sexual transmission... is it the sex or the close contact (or as this expert says: "extremely close contact") with open skin lessions or is the HIV status of those catching it? 

more here.

other animals get pox virus infection: Including cows, which can spread to humans and give them mild rashes. Indeed, it was a GP named Jenner who noticed that cowmaids, who often caught cowpox and got rashes on their hands, were famous for having a nice complexion (i.e. they did not have smallpox scars on their face), and figured out that cowpox gave them immunity to smallpox. He then instituted cowpox innoculation to stop small pox... there are anecdotes of humans caring for horses and donkeys with severe pox infections catching mild cases too, and animals with ORF virus infections can spread to humans in close contact with the animal.

The problem is not that an occassional human can catch the virus from the animal, (often on their hands, and one suspects the virus infects the hands through small wound/abrasions there)... but if the virus starts spreading person to person, which means it can cause an epidemic if transmission is not stopped.

Smallpox is airborne and even scab debris can spread it. So far, this is not true of monkey pox, so there is probably no danger of it becoming an epidemic.

However, if you want to be afraid, think Bird flu... BirdFlu, which has caused several hundred human deaths in various asian countries, but has not yet become epidemic: because it does not spread person to person (yet)... but it is only a matter of time.

One worry about the over reaction to Covid is that it will make people cynical.

The danger is that for the next epidemic, people might refuse to go along with advice from the "experts"...

Sigh.

and it doesn't help that an unpopular Biden is hinting he might sign a treaty that lets the W.H.O. have the right to tell the US what to do. Silly me: treaties have to be ratified by the US Senate, but the imperial presidency seems to be the rule right now.

The WHO usually does a good job fighting epidemics, but they botched the fight against the Covid epidemic by following China's lies when anyone with a lick of sense knew China was doing a coverup of the disease.

Sigh. 

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best comment on this video:

Wolves ay we

12 hours ago

I can’t believe it’s Monkey pox season already. I still have my Ukraine decorations up.

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update: Like HIV, monkey pox is being pushed as if it were a danger to ordinary folk and in order to reimpose obedience to masks etc.

But (via Instapundit) it is now being recognized that it requires "very close contact"... as in sexual contact.

The UK Mail is even more explicit on where the epidemic might have started: at a huge gay festival. But even they state that it was not sexually spread, but spread by close contact... as if shaking hands, not genital to genital contact spread it.

sorry: But I had to give the HIV lectures thirty years ago to my National Guard unit, and had to learn a lot of what was behind the explosive spread of the disease. One wonders how many lives would have been saved if Diane Feinstein's order to shut down the SF bathhouses in 1984 (for spreading other STDs) had been allowed to be implemented: it was stopped and the public health authorities were labled as anti sex fanatics.