5 ms·

BNONews has been making a dashboard for every maybe-virus the past year (recently they had Monkeypox and some other one, Marburg maybe)? None of those turned in

BNONews has been making a dashboard for every maybe-virus the past year (recently they had Monkeypox and some other one, Marburg maybe)? None of those turned into any major problem. They're pandemic profiteering, so while I appreciate the data they're collecting, I'm not quite ready to start freaking out about it.

bpp 4y ago
I wouldn't call Monkeypox a maybe virus, especially along with these. Its spread was mostly limited to a single community (sexually active gay men), and it absolutely would have spread out of control had there not been a very strong vaccination campaign with high rates of compliance. Within that community, there were many people who were impacted and many others who changed their behavior to help mitigate to spread.
- jojobas 4y ago
  >sexually active I think you meant "promiscuous".
  - flangola7 4y ago
    Potatoe potato
Izkata 4y ago
In the mid-2010s both Ebola and Zika got a media boost as well, and Candida auris in 2019 or so.
- Melatonic 4y ago
  The difference with Ebola though is just how insanely bad it is - I cannot think of a virus I would NOT want more than Ebola. Thankfully the fact it is so damn destructive also means it is harder to spread en masse.....
behnamoh 4y ago
Why do these viruses often appear in China first? Has there been any study to find out any common patterns? Is it the food? Culture? Living environment?
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  Don't forget sheer number of people.
  - behnamoh 4y ago
    India is almost the same size but doesn’t seem to have this pattern.
    - andrewflnr 4y ago
      Yeah, probably not sufficient on its own, but I bet it's a factor. It amplifies the others.
      - dmix 4y ago
        The big question is why doesn’t it happen more often via India?
        schoen 4y ago
        Quick guesses: Maybe Indians have less contact with wildlife (due to different settlement patterns, or religious or cultural restrictions on eating wild animals?), or less average physical mobility (more expensive and inconvenient long-distance transportation), or a climate less conducive to certain modes of virus transmission? A smaller fraction of the population working or commuting in huge indoor spaces? Maybe (contrary to Americans' intuition) Chinese public health surveillance is both more effective and more transparent than Indian, leading to a measurement bias because some disease outbreaks that arise in China get better-documented?
    - projectazorian 4y ago
OJFord 4y ago
Monkeypox was(/is? Idk) not a non-event, it was very real and relevant professionals were concerned about it. I don't know where 'BNONews' is based, but since China's in the title of this one I'll point out there were 'monkeypox' cases in the UK too for example. Just because it fortunately didn't go (/hasn't gone!) like SARS-nCoV-2019 doesn't mean it wasn't worth reporting.
- loeg 4y ago
  Monkeypox was pretty clearly a non-event for the vast majority of the population pretty early on. There continued to be misleading and fearmongering reporting for weeks and months after that was obvious, because of the well-known phenomenon where media gets more clicks and eyeballs if the "news" is bad. Also, Covid doomers really wanted a 2nd thing to be depressed about.
  - mustacheemperor 4y ago
    It remained a non-event for the vast majority of the population because the most vulnerable proportion of the population participated in a widespread vaccination campaign. If a little extra screen time in the media made that campaign successful it paid dividends for public health, imo.
    - loeg 4y ago
      Because the messaging was so muddled by attempts to amplify fear[1][2] or to avoid stigma, straight people showed up to vaccination sites and took very limited Monkeypox vaccine capacity from the sub-population who was actually at risk. At the time, I read opinions[3] from gay men who would have really preferred that the messaging was more explicit about who was at risk (so that gay men knew to get vaccinated and straight people knew they weren't at much risk). [1]: There were articles about fear of Monkeypox spreading in K12 schools, despite a notable lack of unprotected anal sex in a typical K12 setting. https://www.curbed.com/2022/08/monkeypox-nyc-schools-no-guidance.html https://www.curbed.com/2022/08/monkeypox-nyc-schools-no-guid... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/health/monkeypox-masks-cdc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/health/monkeypox-masks-cd... [2]: https://www.joshbarro.com/p/finally-some-good-news-about-monkeypox https://www.joshbarro.com/p/finally-some-good-news-about-mon... and https://www.joshbarro.com/p/how-not-to-talk-to-the-public-about https://www.joshbarro.com/p/how-not-to-talk-to-the-public-ab...

bpp 4y ago

I wouldn't call Monkeypox a maybe virus, especially along with these. Its spread was mostly limited to a single community (sexually active gay men), and it absolutely would have spread out of control had there not been a very strong vaccination campaign with high rates of compliance. Within that community, there were many people who were impacted and many others who changed their behavior to help mitigate to spread.

jojobas 4y ago
>sexually active I think you meant "promiscuous".
- flangola7 4y ago
  Potatoe potato

Izkata 4y ago

In the mid-2010s both Ebola and Zika got a media boost as well, and Candida auris in 2019 or so.

Melatonic 4y ago
The difference with Ebola though is just how insanely bad it is - I cannot think of a virus I would NOT want more than Ebola. Thankfully the fact it is so damn destructive also means it is harder to spread en masse.....

behnamoh 4y ago

Why do these viruses often appear in China first? Has there been any study to find out any common patterns? Is it the food? Culture? Living environment?

andrewflnr 4y ago
Don't forget sheer number of people.
- behnamoh 4y ago
  India is almost the same size but doesn’t seem to have this pattern.
  - andrewflnr 4y ago
    Yeah, probably not sufficient on its own, but I bet it's a factor. It amplifies the others.
    - dmix 4y ago
      The big question is why doesn’t it happen more often via India?
      - schoen 4y ago
        Quick guesses: Maybe Indians have less contact with wildlife (due to different settlement patterns, or religious or cultural restrictions on eating wild animals?), or less average physical mobility (more expensive and inconvenient long-distance transportation), or a climate less conducive to certain modes of virus transmission? A smaller fraction of the population working or commuting in huge indoor spaces? Maybe (contrary to Americans' intuition) Chinese public health surveillance is both more effective and more transparent than Indian, leading to a measurement bias because some disease outbreaks that arise in China get better-documented?
  - projectazorian 4y ago

OJFord 4y ago

Monkeypox was(/is? Idk) not a non-event, it was very real and relevant professionals were concerned about it. I don't know where 'BNONews' is based, but since China's in the title of this one I'll point out there were 'monkeypox' cases in the UK too for example. Just because it fortunately didn't go (/hasn't gone!) like SARS-nCoV-2019 doesn't mean it wasn't worth reporting.

loeg 4y ago
Monkeypox was pretty clearly a non-event for the vast majority of the population pretty early on. There continued to be misleading and fearmongering reporting for weeks and months after that was obvious, because of the well-known phenomenon where media gets more clicks and eyeballs if the "news" is bad. Also, Covid doomers really wanted a 2nd thing to be depressed about.
- mustacheemperor 4y ago
  It remained a non-event for the vast majority of the population because the most vulnerable proportion of the population participated in a widespread vaccination campaign. If a little extra screen time in the media made that campaign successful it paid dividends for public health, imo.
  - loeg 4y ago
    Because the messaging was so muddled by attempts to amplify fear[1][2] or to avoid stigma, straight people showed up to vaccination sites and took very limited Monkeypox vaccine capacity from the sub-population who was actually at risk. At the time, I read opinions[3] from gay men who would have really preferred that the messaging was more explicit about who was at risk (so that gay men knew to get vaccinated and straight people knew they weren't at much risk). [1]: There were articles about fear of Monkeypox spreading in K12 schools, despite a notable lack of unprotected anal sex in a typical K12 setting. https://www.curbed.com/2022/08/monkeypox-nyc-schools-no-guidance.html https://www.curbed.com/2022/08/monkeypox-nyc-schools-no-guid... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/health/monkeypox-masks-cdc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/health/monkeypox-masks-cd... [2]: https://www.joshbarro.com/p/finally-some-good-news-about-monkeypox https://www.joshbarro.com/p/finally-some-good-news-about-mon... and https://www.joshbarro.com/p/how-not-to-talk-to-the-public-about https://www.joshbarro.com/p/how-not-to-talk-to-the-public-ab...