Coronavirus: Thread

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NYC Reports First Suspected Monkeypox Case As WHO Convenes Emergency Meeting

Update (1608ET): Officials in New York City say they are monitoring
the state's first suspected case of monkeypox in a patient receiving
care at Bellevue Hospital, where preliminary tests have been performed
to confirm the disease, according to the Wall Street Journal.

So far, 87 cases have been confirmed worldwide and 57 are under
investigation, according to the World Health Organization. Earlier
Friday Israel became the 13th country to report a suspected case.

The disease was also reported on Friday by Germany, Australia, France
and Belgium, while two cases were confirmed in Canada.

Monkeypox causes a contagious rash similar to chickenpox in humans,
and is spread through close contact. Symptoms, which usually appear
within the first five days of infection, include muscle aches, chills,
fever, swollen glands, exhaustion - and of course, pustules.

The mortality rate for monkeypox ranges from 1% to 15%, and is endemic
in three countries; the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and the
Central African Republic. The first reported case detected in the UK
had traveled to Nigeria, after which they returned with a rash,
according to the WHO.

*  *  *

Update (1055ET): The World Health Organization is convening a group of
leading experts for an emergency meeting about the ongoing monkeypox
outbreak, according to the Telegraph.

The meeting comes as 12 countries have reported recent cases, with the
CDC confirming at least one in the United States.

    "I'm sure that ultimately this will be the largest outbreak of
monkeypox that we've had outside of the endemic areas in Africa,"
Daniel Bausch, infectious disease expert and president of the American
Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene told Axios.

That said, Bausch doesn't think there's cause for concern just yet.

    "I don't think there's a reason for panic. I don't think we're
going to have tens of thousands of cases."

Prof Anne Rimoin, professor of epidemiology at the UCLA and a world
renowned monkeypox expert, told the Telegraph that vaccinating close
contacts of confirmed cases, also known as ring vaccination, is a good
option for health officials.

She added that the public should not, at this stage, be too concerned.

    "For your average person I would not be overly alarmed. If you
have a rash, contact your health provider, a rash that is unusual or
looks like monkeypox," she said.

    "If you think you've been exposed to somebody who has monkeypox
that has this kind of a rash I would I would identify yourself and
talk to your healthcare provider."

So COVID was "not a major threat to the people of the US" (Fauci),
Subprime is "contained" (Bernanke), and "I don't believe another
financial crisis will occur in our lifetimes (Yellen)... but now we
shouldn't be worried about Monkeypox...

*  *  *

What in the world is going on?

As Michael Snyder detailed earlier, in the past, we were told that
monkeypox was not a major concern because it was so difficult to
spread it from person to person.

But now monkeypox seems to be spreading like wildfire.

On May 7th, the very first case in the western world in 2022 was
confirmed in the United Kingdom.

Now here we are less than two weeks later and there are now dozens of
confirmed and suspected cases in twelve different countries outside of
Africa.

Yesterday, I discussed the cases that have popped up in Spain,
Portugal and the United States.  Now there are significantly more
nations that are reporting confirmed or suspected cases, and that
should greatly alarm all of us.

The confirmed case in Massachusetts involves a man that had recently
traveled to Canada, and so it was suspected that there were additional
cases among the Canadians.

Earlier today, we learned that “thirteen probable cases are being
investigated in Canada”, and the test results for those thirteen
“probable cases” should be released soon.

Meanwhile, a case has been confirmed all the way up in Sweden…

    ‘One person in the Stockholm region has been confirmed to be
infected with monkeypox,’ Sweden’s Public Health Agency said in a
statement.

    The infected person ‘is not seriously ill, but has been given
care,’ according to the agency.

And it appears that there could be multiple cases in Italy…

    Italy’s patient was holidaying in the Canary Islands and is now in
isolation at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome, the hospital said.

    Another two other suspected cases are being monitored, it added.

The first case of monkeypox in Australia has been confirmed in the
state of Victoria from a man in his 30s who recently returned from the
United Kingdom.

    “There are few close contacts that have been identified, obviously
the GP is one of them,” Victoria Chief Health Officer (CHO) Brett
Sutton told reporters on Friday, referring to the general practitioner
who referred the man for testing.

Belgium has a second case...

    Een tweede geval van het apenpokkenvirus werd vannacht
gediagnosticeerd op ons labo in Leuven in een staal van een man uit
Vlaams-Brabant.

    Mensen die bij zichzelf letsels zoals op deze foto herkennen,
kunnen best contact opnemen met hun arts. pic.twitter.com/ptGbQ9jAPf
    — Marc Van Ranst (@vanranstmarc) May 20, 2022

A case of monkeypox has been confirmed in Munich, Germany. Bavaria's
Health Minister Klaus Holetschek pointed this out on Friday. The
patient comes from Brazil and is already isolated in the Munich Clinic
Schwabing.

A first case of infection with monkeypox was detected in France on
Thursday in Île-de-France, announced this Friday the Directorate
General of Health.

    “As soon as his infection was suspected, this person was taken
care of. In the absence of seriousness, he is isolated at his home”,
specifies the ministry.

    The patient is a young man of 29 with no history of travel to a
country where the virus is circulating.

There may be some cases of the monkeypox virus in the Netherlands,
RIVM reports Friday. Samples are currently being examined in a lab.
The result of this is not yet known.

This was never supposed to happen.

Even though monkeypox is a relatively new disease, cases were always
extremely rare, and a global outbreak was always considered to be
extremely unlikely because it was so hard to spread monkeypox.

Has something changed?

A prominent infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University is
telling us that this virus “is spreading via physical touch”, and that
it can spread “through respiratory droplets” under certain
circumstances…

    Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, Maryland, also told DailyMail.com that the
virus is spreading via physical touch – and that it only spreads
through respiratory droplets in the air in people that are already
exhibiting symptoms.

That is extremely alarming to hear.

But before we jump to conclusions, it is important to note that we
still really don’t know too much about this virus.  It hasn’t been
around for that long, and scientists have long warned that it could
potentially mutate into a more transmissible form…

    For decades, a few scientists have voiced concerns that the
monkeypox virus could have become better at infecting
people—ironically because we eradicated its relative, smallpox, in the
late 1970s. The smallpox vaccine incidentally protected against
monkeypox. And when new generations were born into a world without
either smallpox or smallpox-vaccination campaigns, they grew up
vulnerable to monkeypox. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, this
dwindling immunity meant that monkeypox infections increased 20-fold
in the three decades after smallpox vanished, as Rimoin showed in
2010. That gives the virus more chances to evolve into a more
transmissible pathogen in humans. To date, its R0—the average number
of people who catch the disease from one infected person—has been less
than 1, which means that outbreaks naturally peter out. But it could
eventually evolve above that threshold, and cause more protracted
epidemics, as Bergstrom simulated in 2003. “We saw monkeypox as a
ticking time bomb,” he told me.

Hopefully those that are investigating this new outbreak will soon be
able to tell us whether the virus has mutated or not.

Meanwhile, authorities are claiming that it seems to be particularly
spreading among men that have sex with other men.  The following comes
from CNN…

    Both in the United Kingdom and Canada, health authorities have
noted that many of the monkeypox cases were identified in men who have
sex with men — but the virus is not typically described as a sexually
transmitted infection and investigations into these recent cases
continue.

If this new outbreak continues to grow, it will only be a matter of
time before people start clamoring for vaccines.  Health officials say
that the existing smallpox vaccine should offer at least some
protection against monkeypox, and they are already considering giving
it to certain groups…

    CDC officials are evaluating whether smallpox vaccine should be
offered to healthcare workers treating monkeypox patients and other
people who may be at “high risk” for exposure to monkeypox, McQuiston
said.

    “It’s definitely something that we’re discussing and evaluating,
whether offering smallpox vaccine makes sense in the current setting,”
she said.

    “We’ll be closer to making recommendations for that in the next day or so.”

And it is being reported that there are enough doses of the smallpox
vaccine “to vaccinate basically everyone in the U.S.”…

    And as another bioterrorism precaution, stockpiles of three
smallpox vaccines are large enough “to vaccinate basically everyone in
the U.S.” Inglesby said. And though monkeypox patients usually get
just supportive care, a possible treatment does exist and has also
been stockpiled: Tecovirimat, or TPOXX, was developed to treat
smallpox but would likely work for monkeypox too.

Hopefully we never get to a point where officials feel like a
full-blown vaccination campaign is needed.  After what we have been
through with COVID, nobody wants to see that.

Apparently a monkeypox vaccine already exists as well, and the New
York Post is reporting that the U.S. has just ordered “13 million
additional doses”…

    The US has ordered 13 million additional doses of the monkeypox
vaccine after a Massachusetts man contracted the rare — but
potentially severe — virus, officials said Thursday.

    The massive $119 million order of Jynneos jabs — which can be used
to treat both the monkeypox virus and smallpox — was created by the
biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic, according to Newsweek.

Authorities in the western world are certainly acting as if this is
going to turn into something big.

Time will tell whether that turns out to be true or not.

But without a doubt, I believe that we have entered a time in history
when there will regularly be great pestilences.

In secret labs all over the globe, mad scientists are feverishly
trying to make the deadliest diseases on the planet even deadlier.

I could not possibly overstate the foolishness of conducting such
“research”, but no matter how much we object they are just going to
continue their work.

Over time, it is inevitable that at least some of their creations will
get loose, and vast numbers of people could end up dead as a result.