Even though “Risk to the general public is low.”
QUICK FACTS:
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised its travel advisory from Level 1 to Level 2 in response to the current monkeypox—fatal in 1 to 11% of those infected—outbreak, which has resulted in more than 200 confirmed and over 100 suspected cases in more than 20 countries, according to the agency’s website.
- “Cases of monkeypox have been reported in Europe, North America, and Australia,” the CDC reports, before recommending that travelers should avoid “Close contact with sick people, including those with skin lesions or genital lesions.”
- Although “risk to the general public is low,” the agency also recommends avoiding contact with dead or live wild animals and non-human primates as well as avoiding eating or preparing meat from wild game or using products derived from wild animals from Africa.
- Travelers should also avoid “Contact with contaminated materials used by sick people (such as clothing, bedding, or materials used in healthcare settings) or that came into contact with infected animals,” the CDC goes on to say.
- The possibility of another worldwide push for lockdowns and quarantines, like those imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been criticized by those who say they will not be following such measures again. Conservative commentator Candace Owens called those who would accept a monkeypox vaccine “stupid” while podcaster Eric Matheny declared he would “never” comply with another lockdown order.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has also said it does not believe the monkeypox outbreak outside Africa will lead to a pandemic, although the agency is considering whether the outbreak should be assessed as a “potential public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC). “At the moment, we are not concerned of a global pandemic,” stated Rosamund Lewis, technical lead for monkeypox from the WHO Health Emergencies Programme.
- See ‘BACKGROUND’ section below for how in March 2021 a Democrat-founded think tank predicted a Monkeypox outbreak would occur on Jun 5, 2022.
COUNTRIES WITH CONFIRMED CASES:
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- England
- France
- Germany
- Israel
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Portugal
- Scotland
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Arab Emirates
- United States
BACKGROUND:
- Monkeypox is a rare disease caused by infection with the monkeypox virus that occurs mostly throughout Central and West Africa, often near tropical rain forests, the CDC notes.
- “People usually become infected with the monkeypox virus through contact with the skin lesions or bodily fluids of infected animals or humans (alive or dead), including respiratory droplets, or through contact with materials contaminated with the virus,” the agency explains.
- Symptoms “include fever (≥100.4°F), headache, muscle aches, and swollen lymph nodes, followed by a rash. Lesions typically develop at the same time and evolve together on any given part of the body. Lesions progress through several stages before falling off (macules, papules, vesicles, pustules, scabs).” Patients “are usually ill for 2–4 weeks.”
- In March of 2021, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), founded by Democrat former Sen. Sam Nunn, conducted a Monkeypox outbreak simulation predicting the pandemic would begin on June 5, 2022. The Associated Press reported the first U.S. case of Monkeypox on May 18, 2022—less than three weeks after NTI’s prediction—immediately followed by the American government placing a $119 million order for 13 million freeze-dried Monkeypox vaccines. The group—whose board members are affiliated with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, various Chinese institutions, the FDA, and the WHO—predicts 271 million deaths from Monkeypox by Dec 2023. Read NTI’s official paper on the simulation below:
