‘Here we go again’: New Yorkers told to mask up after media hypes Monkeypox cases

Just when you thought it was safe to ditch the masks and breathe freely, New Yorkers are being told they should once again mask up after an NYC patient has tested positive for orthopoxvirus–a genus of viruses under which falls smallpox, cowpox, horsepox, and monkeypox.

While the CDC has yet to confirm the patient has monkeypox and a second suspected case turned out to be negative, health department officials are now urging residents to again don restrictive masks to protect themselves from the latest viral threat.

“Monkeypox primarily spreads through physical contact but can also be transmitted through respiratory droplets in the air,” the Daily Mail reports.

The virus, normally not seen outside Africa, has already shown itself in nine European nations, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, with Germany facing what it claims is the largest outbreak in Europe’s history.

Cases have also been reported in Australia, Canada, and in the United States.

On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) held an emergency meeting in response to more than 100 confirmed or suspected European cases.

 

Though related to the deadly smallpox virus, monkeypox is typically not lethal. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, and, of course, the characteristic skin rashes, which generally start on the face before spreading across the body.

Because monkeypox is typically only spread via close contact with an infected person, through physical touch, and through the air only via respiratory droplets from symptomatic patients, scientists do not at this time believe the outbreak is likely to evolve into another full-blown pandemic.

As one senior U.S. administration official told the Daily Mail, “There appears to be a low risk to the general public at this time.”

According to Fabien Leendertz of the Robert Koch Institute, the outbreak is more akin to an epidemic.

“However,” he said, “it is very unlikely that this epidemic will last long. The cases can be well isolated via contact tracing and there are also drugs and effective vaccines that can be used if necessary.”

So, if there’s a vaccine, it’s difficult to catch, and, should you contract it, it is treatable, why, wonder many, would New York City rush to warn its residents that they should again mask up?

The timing of this global spread — and the fear-mongering that is naturally accompanying it — is, for some, suspicious.

Classifications of monkeypox as a “disease dangerous to public health,” noted one user–a Swedish journalist– on Twitter, gives nations the ability to once again impose authoritarian measures in response to a national health “crisis.”

“Sweden is classifying monkeypox as a ‘disease dangerous to public health,’ allowing the government to impose measures and restrictions to stop the spread of infection,” the user reported. “Here we go again…”

Meanwhile, as American Wire reported, the Biden administration is just days away from handing our nation’s sovereignty over to the WHO as part of a controversial global pandemic treaty.

 

Under the amended treaty, the WHO alone would be granted the power to define what constitutes “pandemics” and “public health emergencies,” and would mandate a “whole of government and a whole of society approach to pandemic preparedness,” said Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

“The White House eliminated a provision that would have required the World Health Organization to ‘consult with an attempt to obtain verification form the state arty in whose territory the event is allegedly occurring in,” Carlson reported. “So, as originally written, they couldn’t do anything without the permission of their member countries’ governments. But thanks to the change that the Biden administration pushed, effectively there is no limit at all on WHO’s power and then it gets worse from there.”

If implemented, in the event of, say, a monkeypox pandemic, WHO member nations will be be required to blindly enforce orders from the WHO or face sanctions, if Carlson’s assessment of the treaty is correct.

Notes one user on Twitter, “last year, the US has [sic] the most monkeypox cases we’ve had in almost 20 years, and no one talked about it. The fact there’s a manufactured panic about it 2 days before the pandemic treaty meeting is farcical.”

Melissa Fine

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