To ask if you are worried about monkeypox?

[WhenTheNightFalls]

Can't help but feel a little anxious about it all. Aibu?

I'm 53 and I haven't had it.

I'm mid forties and have, but where I grew up had it as part of the schedule till 1982.

I'm a little bit concerned as when you read about the history of monkey pox this number of cases across countries is unusual.

Also concerned that young children get the worst symptoms as I have a small child. In addition to mortality rate there are potential complications corneal scarring causing blindness.

I'd be less worried if our healthcare system wasn't so overstretched and underfunded. I have recently lost faith that the NHS in our local area will have the resources to help us if we become seriously ill.

It's slightly concerning but I'm not concerned for myself, DS is gay so maybe more concerning there. I have had smallpox vaccination but it was over 60 years ago so not sure how well it holds up anyway.

When you think about it lots of infections would be likely to be passed during a sexual encounter because you do tend to get close during sex. I mean everything from a cold to measles would spread well with close contact. We can't call them all STIs can we.

Which made the 1978 death of Janet Parker all the more tragic. I don't think they ever found out how she caught it as the lab she worked in was supposed to be secure.

That was such a sad story. My very hazy memory of the article I read suggested she had had contact with someone who'd been dealing with a virulent strain and it was simply appalling luck that she managed to catch it. Poor woman.

Here's quite an interesting thread on it:

twitter.com/magi_jay/status/1527691965164359681?t=QLQjQh3HWgOfTs21KrCmzA&s=19

I’m really irritated by the coverage of this disease. I keep reading that it’s ‘mild’ and ‘not fatal’. Statistically it appears that this so-called ‘mild’ strain is fatal in around 1-3% of cases, mostly young children. So, more fatal than COVID but whereas COVID mostly killed old, unhealthy people this is likelier to kill babies and children. And as for long term effects, well, scarring and blindness are pretty fucking serious! More serious in my opinion than most of the long covid symptoms. Why aren’t newspapers etc being clearer about this? Do we actually care more about old people than kids? I see people arguing that we shouldn’t spread panic or risk stigmatising the gay community (in which it is mostly spreading, although there’s already one child in paediatric intensive care with it in this country, not that you’d know it from the way this is being reported). But surely if we keep telling people meh, it’s mild, nothing to worry about, it’s going to lead to those with very mild symptoms shrugging it off and going about their lives instead of isolating? I mean, if you’re a young guy who doesn’t really fancy self isolating for weeks on end and you get a couple of weird blisters are you more likely to get yourself checked out if you’re told by everything you read that the disease is mild and no biggy and probably sexually transmitted anyway, or (which is actually true) that it’s a potentially very severe illness that kills children and can be spread by any close contact including prolonged conversation or proximity in an enclosed space? All coverage of this should be EXTREMELY clear about the danger posed by this disease precisely so that the relevant population takes it seriously and recognises that high risk behaviour on their part does, in this case, unlike with HIV, have the potential for spillover into the wider community. For Christ’s sake, we kept kids out of school for months, we stopped them getting socialised and doing their exams, and risked making them depressed and anxious, despite covid mostly not affecting them much at all because we (rightly!) wanted to keep old people safe, but we can’t be clear about the dangers of monkeypox because it might make life harder for adult gay men? I’m not sure as a society that our priorities are as they should be.

The fact that there is a child in intensive care has been reported in the media here. It is also widely being reported that several of the cases in the UK are in gay men.

Perhaps the media has learned lessons fron covid and is being more circumspect in reporting to avoid whipping up panic (and in this case homophobia).

Statistically it appears that this so-called ‘mild’ strain is fatal in around 1-3% of cases, mostly young children.

In Africa. Not with Western medicine and living standards. It's not a like for like situation.

Nor sure what you mean about the media learning lessons from COVID about avoiding whipping up panic. Didn’t we learn from COVID that taking it seriously was the right thing to do and that getting people to isolate promptly and properly was vital? As for homophobia: no one except people who are already homophobic could possibly want that outcome. Just like no one except racists could possibly have wanted an increase in sinophobia to result from the COVID outbreak. But it needs to be made very clear to the young men who are likeliest to get this disease that it is not negligible and they should not simply shrug it off.
You say it’s being reported in the media here that there’s a child in intensive care with this. I’ve seen it in one article. I’ve seen many, many articles saying it’s mild, occurring mostly in men who have sex with men, and entirely failing to mention either the mortality rate or the risk of complications, or that there is a very sick child already. Like these ones:
amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/21/we-will-see-more-cases-of-monkeypox-warn-british-scientists
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61524508.amp (this one at least notes it can be more dangerous for children and pregnant women, but omits to mention that it can be fatal)
amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/20/now-we-have-to-deal-with-it-whats-going-on-in-the-uk-with-monkeypox (Mentions fatality rate but suggests those vulnerable to it are limited to people with weakened immune systems)
news.sky.com/story/amp/monkeypox-significant-rise-in-uk-cases-expected-in-next-week-says-expert-as-some-clinics-stop-walk-ins-12618092

That’s just a random sampling of the top news articles that pop up when I search monkeypox on Google. So no, the media is not consistently reporting that a child is very ill with this disease or even that it is likely to make children very ill.

It is true that the African figure do not present a perfect like for like comparison. But the fact is we do not know what the fatality or long term illness rate might be in children here. We are told that there are therapeutics available but I have read elsewhere that these are not suitable for use in young children. Much is made of the smallpox vaccine as a useful tool against this but this cannot be used in people with any history of eczema (that’s an awful lot of children).

Now if I were a sexually active young man with a couple of slightly funny blisters looking at this news, would I think oh fuck, this could be that horrible thing that kills kids I need to isolate for three weeks and tell the government about my recent sexual contacts so they can trace them and make them isolate? Or would I think eh, could be that thing people are talking about I guess but it’s not doing me much harm and it’s really hard to pass on and it’s mild anyway. I isolated so much during COVID. Maybe I’ll risk it this time.

I think we should be presenting this news to skew responses towards the first reaction, not the second. Don’t you?

Absolutely not. I refuse to ever buy into the government and media scaremongering again, and we should never let the sheer paranoid hysteria of 2020 happen again.

Now if I were a sexually active young man with a couple of slightly funny blisters looking at this news, would I think oh fuck, this could be that horrible thing that kills kids I need to isolate for three weeks and tell the government about my recent sexual contacts so they can trace them and make them isolate?

The fact that a number of cases are in gay men would seem to suggest that gay men with symptoms are reporting those symptoms and not just ignoring them.

Since I'm not a gay or bisexual man, I'm reckoning my chances of catching it are low.

I think we should be presenting this news to skew responses towards the first reaction, not the second. Don’t you?

Actually, we should be understanding the genuine threat and acting accordingly. The government/media played a very heavy hand with covid (rightly or wrongly) and need to be careful as maintaining this heavy hand will be detrimental longer term if it isn't needed.

It's a very different disease to covid and everything we know about it so far suggests it would be much, much easier to contain. Let's work to understand the best way forward - it's not a rerun of covid and it would be very problematic to decide it is.

Pink news is reporting fairly extensively on monkeypox. There will be a lot of awareness in the gay community.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/05/21/monkeypox-sexual-health-clinics-cases-worldwide-smallpox-vaccine/

There are versions of the smallpox vaccine suitable for eczema sufferers, so let's can the scaremongering on that also.

Oh well, if you think COVID was all just paranoia in spite of a collapsing NHS and a pretty hefty death rate I suppose you won’t mind a few kids being put at serious and unnecessary risk.
Yes, some of those affected are coming forward. Good on them, and thank god for them. But are all or even enough of them doing so? That’s the point. I’m not saying gay men as a category are any more irresponsible or likely to ignore symptoms than anyone else in the population — actually I think there’s a chance that a large proportion of men who have sexual with men are acutely aware of disease risk and are therefore more responsible than the average heterosexual. But some of them will be like the poster here who thinks COVID was a lot of fuss about nothing and will need more persuading to take this seriously. The media ought to address those people, in my view, and make it clear a) that is may be at least as deadly or likely to result in morbidity as COVID, but to children rather than old people, b) it is not only passed on through sex (which I’ve seen some people saying, so it’s clearly a misconception that needs addressing) and c) unlike COVID there is a very good chance of stopping monkeypox completely with little or no inconvenience to anyone except those directly exposed so every effort should be made to do so.

I know a couple of epidemiologists.

they were (still are!) worried about covid.

they are observing monkeypox with caution, but are not too concerned as transmission is a lot more difficult than covid.

The media ought to address those people, in my view, and make it clear a) that is may be at least as deadly or likely to result in morbidity as COVID, but to children rather than old people

As that's very unlikely to be true in the west, that would be irresponsible to report, so no, they shouldn't

Prior to Covid this would have gone completely unremarked in the media. Now however, the media are whipping every last thing up into a mass frenzy and in doing so making a massive play on everyone’s health anxiety
Are you worried about TB? Are you worried about Legionnaire’s disease? Are you worried about Scarlett Fever? No, because it’s not in the media spotlight. Don’t let yourself be played like this

Nail on head and all that, though I wondered how long it would be before a thread on this appeared

Since it's reported this is more prevalent among the gay community there'll be a natural reluctance to spread the idea that it's "only a minority group", but we saw this with AIDS and the tombstone adverts suggesting we were all massively at risk, and as usual the media can be relied on to stir up panic

If it wasn’t for the pre-requisite to panic set by covid would you still feel this way?

Around 25 people in England and Wales die from chickenpox every year, the papers don't report these deaths and we certainly don't panic about Chickenpox.

There have been about 58 deaths from monkeypox during this outbreak WORLD WIDE.

It's just the media scaremongering.

The media have always caused panic over illnesses and viruses that are spreading. In effect Covid was the boy who cried wolf because the media had hyped up so many things previously a lot people struggled to take it seriously until just before we locked down.

Given I am not in or sleeping with anyone in the group affected I am not worried. It also seems quite treatable although nasty so hopefully it will not become a wider issue and those affected will recover