Because that’s where this one started. It’s similar to the measles outbreak of a few years ago being linked to Disney - totally unrelated except for the “beginning.”
Of course, if it makes folks read more news stories… there’s that too (for either).
But probably not a good idea, if people say, “well, I’m not gay, so I don’t need to worry!”
Or worse, “ostracize the gay people!”
They probably could have left it at, “sexual contact can be very risky when it comes to monkey pox. Of course you can also get infected from a lesion on a hand…”
3 Likes
for the same reason that HIV first exploded in the gay male population. In general, many more partners than in the straight population, thus many more exposures.
2 Likes
I’m in my early 60s, and I’m thinking that for the rest of my life I’ll be wearing a mask in public indoor spaces.
With the glaciers melting, new viruses will be the norm.
4 Likes
And now a possible case in my county here in the greater Seattle area. 
1 Like
I don’t know why these posts are getting flagged. There is nothing in them that is offensive. Weird.
HIV initially exploded in the gay male population because many sexually active homosexuals had many partners, thus many more exposures. It had also been the case with all other STDs, and Hep B, which can be an STD. It then moved into other populations who had high risk exposures - prostitutes who serviced straight men, hemophiliacs who received pooled blood products, drug addicts who shared needles.
What’s happening with monkeypox now is that apparently it was widely spread by homosexual contact at two rave events in Europe. That’s not a slur - it’s a fact. It’s not a good idea to ignore epidemiological facts just because someone deems them politically incorrect. The likelihood is that this transmission can be easily stopped, because people tend to get sick from monkeypox pretty quickly, and thus would be unlikely to easily unknowingly pass it on, because they’re likely to go home and go to bed. With increasing awareness, people who contract it will seek medical care, and medical personnel will recognize it when the patients present for care. In addition, because of Covid, patients and staff are supposed to be masked when entering medical facilities, thus preventing respiratory droplet transmission of monkeypox.
So, it’s not a big deal, transmission will die down, monkeypox will recede, it will all be over soon. This is not the same as an illness that is spread by aerosols, and it’s not widespread enough for fomites to become an issue. It will be contained before it reaches that point. Only way this becomes an issue is if the monkeypox virus has mutated to enable aerosol transmission - and if that had happened, we’d be seeing it spreading like wildfire, with many more cases than the rare popup case we’re seeing now.
13 Likes
We supposedly don’t need to mask against Covid (transmitted by aerosols) on airplanes because the air turnover is so rapid, but we need to worry about monkeypox having been transmitted by respiratory droplets on airplanes?
1 Like
Hello! Do you think there will be a new wave of global pandemic?
No monkeypox isn’t very contagious. It should die out quickly.
Good, because they haven’t recovered much from the covid yet.
MPX State of Affairs: May 26 - by Katelyn Jetelina has some more about monkeypox.
Included is a mention of R0 being estimated as 1.15 to 1.26.
HIV is still largely a gay man’s disease:
- Gay men were 28x over represented in 2019 HIV diagnoses
- Black gay men were 77x over represented
- Hetero men were 7x under represented
- Hetero women were 3x under represented
With monkeypox being a quasi-STD that can be transmitted non-sexually, behavioral changes are necessary, as the WHO has stated.
3 Likes
The biggest reason is to let the gay community know that this is an issue. Whenever you have a specific community affected, that community should be aware that they are at increased risk so they can consider that in whatever behaviors they decide to engage in. Not mentioning that a community is at a higher risk does them a disservice.
2 Likes
“ Researchers at the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA), for example, asked patients to fill out questionnaires. Of 152 who did, 151 said they were MSM, the team wrote in a technical briefing published on 10 June; the remaining patient refused to answer. Other countries have seen similar patterns.”
“Of the 152 people in the UKHSA data set, 82 were invited for additional interviews focusing on their sexual health. Among the 45 who participated, 44% reported more than 10 sexual partners in the previous 3 months, and 44% reported group sex during the incubation period.”
“Without effective intervention measures or behavioral changes, a large and sustained outbreak with more than 10,000 cases among MSM globally is “highly likely,” ”
“ Such conclusions put epidemiologists in a delicate position, and some declined to talk to Science for fear of stigmatizing MSM.”
https://www.science.org/content/article/monkeypox-outbreak-mostly-affecting-men-sex-men
I’m not concerned by an STD outbreak. It’s really hard to get it in other ways. I have no plans to change my life.
“We can also transmit this back to animals that can spread the disease within wildlife and back to humans,” said Sagan Friant, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University who has studied human-animal interactions in Nigeria for about 15 years.
The longer it takes to contain the virus, the higher the odds that it will find a permanent new home in people or animals, Dr. Friant said.”
— NYT
Peer-reviewed research on what caused HIV to spread…
“While MSM are disproportionately affected by HIV, syphilis, and other STDs, health activists from the gay community have systematically resisted the application of the full range of public health strategies traditionally used to prevent their spread.”
1 Like