5 ms·
It is the first poxvirus to spread across the globe since the eradication of smallpox. Vaccines exist, unlike at the outset of Covid, but not at the scale nece
by ISL 4y ago
It is the first poxvirus to spread across the globe since the eradication of smallpox. Vaccines exist, unlike at the outset of Covid, but not at the scale necessary to vaccinate the world and move on.
Even if monkeypox is only an annoyance (which I doubt), if 7 billion people all have to get sick for a week, that deprives humanity of ~134 million people-years of life that they'd rather spend doing something else -- even if there are no longer-lasting impacts.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> It is the first poxvirus to spread across the globe since the eradication of smallpox. How do you figure? I got chickenpox in the 90s.
- danielfoster 4y agoThis comment does not contribute anything to the discussion. I think chickenpox spread before smallpox in any case?
- gringo_flamingo 4y ago
- 0xcde4c3db 4y agoDespite the name, the virus that causes chickenpox is classified as a herpes virus, not a pox virus.
- ethbr0 4y agoChickenpox is caused by varicella zoster, which is a herpes virus. Which is why it can linger and re-emerge as shingles decades later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_zoster_virus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_zoster_virus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Cause https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Cause Similar symptoms, substantially different family trees.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIf it disfigures you just the same as monkeypox, is it a distinction with a difference?
- OccamsMirror 4y ago
- woodruffw 4y agoYes, because it’s a different disease. Radiation sickness will give you burns, but normal burn ward treatments won’t work on it.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> Yes, because it’s a different disease So are monkeypox and smallpox, right? Related, but different diseases. So are this year's strain of influenza, and the Spanish Flu. Related, but different diseases. Should extant monkeypox cause more alarm than extant influenza?
- woodruffw 4y ago“Related” being the operative word. Chickenpox is not meaningfully related to the virus family that causes smallpox and monkeypox. Nothing is a priori worthy of more or less alarm. Public health officials raise a degree of alarm based on the best epidemiological, medical, and demographic information available to them.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI'm talking about the relationship between monkeypox and smallpox, vs the relationship between 2022's influenza and the spanish flu. These are both respectively in the same virus families. No? Smallpox is concerning, monkeypox as it is today isn't very concerning. If I understand the comments in this thread, the great concern is that monkeypox could become something quite deadly like smallpox was. Is that risk substantially greater than the risk of a new influenza that rips through the population like the Spanish Flu once did?
- Gigachad 4y agoGetting sick for a week is part of life. We have made things too comfy already.