(05-24-2022, 11:26 AM)mordant Wrote: It is arguably a little early to start a new thread dedicated to Monkeypox but even if that peters out I think it underscores that due to global warming and other factors, we are now in a situation where we are going to be swept by various pandemics and they are no longer going to be discreetly spaced out by a few generations each. Also they are no longer going to remain comfortably in "third world shitholes" that we don't care about.
I have a feeling it's going to be a Thing though. It has clearly found new ways to transmit that we don't yet understand. It's popping up in all sorts of baffling places. It's more deadly than Covid even in its mildest form by a factor of two. The only upside is we have a moderately effective vaccine for it (if we can make and distribute enough of it) and there's a chance it will prove less transmissible even in its new form than Covid (until we let it rage on for awhile and mutate some more at least). Denialists are already ginning up conspiracy theories and getting out in front of any sort of social distancing, masking or lockdowns. Hilarity will ensue.
Monkeypox appears to be supplanting smallpox now that the latter has been "eradicated". Now that we have almost 2 generations of people who were never vaccinated against smallpox, it isn't impossible that smallpox could also make a roaring comeback from some obscure reservoir or other, but Monkeypox will certainly do.
Great times!
Smallpox cannot make a comeback. It was a human transmissible disease whose only reservoir was humans. The last case of smallpox was in 1977. The disease is dead and gone. While it does have ''cousins'' like the monkeypox, we will never see a return of variola and that's for the best. It was one the most lethal disease in human history. Monkeypox has the benefit of only be transmissible by touch and isn't an airborn disease like COVID of the flu.
