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That turned out to be the case with the 2022 epidemic. This is a novel virus variant which is spreading with enhanced efficacy and to several areas where the di

by etiam 2y ago

That turned out to be the case with the 2022 epidemic. This is a novel virus variant which is spreading with enhanced efficacy and to several areas where the disease has hitherto not been reported, by means which have not yet been adequately characterized. And I'd say healthcare capacity in the afflicted areas is already saturated by default, in the senses I meant, which is that they have no remaining means to improve the outcomes for new disease cases. Severe deficit of vaccine and relevant immunoglobulins, no meaningful access to antivirals (admittedly I'm guessing about this one) and little to nothing to offer in symptomatic treatment over self care. My question to you then (and given your PhD background I guess you may actually have seen some data on it) is how many cases does it take before most "first-world" countries are in that situation as well? The USA may be better off than most due to strategic stockpiles of anti-smallpox measures, but let's say for the typical rest of them.

timr 2y ago
> That turned out to be the case with the 2022 epidemic. No, it didn't. There were less than 100,000 cases globally in the 2022 outbreak. At the peak of the outbreak, in the US, there were about 500 cases a day, nationwide. https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/response/2022/mpx-trends.html https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/response/2022/mpx-trends.h... > This is a novel virus variant which is spreading with enhanced efficacy Aside from some scary quotes in a BBC article, there's no evidence of what you're claiming. There have been less than 14,000 cases since the beginning of the year. That sounds like a lot, but we're talking about multiple countries in Africa. It's not a huge number. > My question to you then...is how many cases does it take before most "first-world" countries are in that situation as well? The USA may be better off than most due to strategic stockpiles of anti-smallpox measures, but let's say for the typical rest of them. It has nothing to do with anti-smallpox measures. Once someone has the virus, treatment is symptomatic: https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/clinicians/treatment.html https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/clinicians/treatment.html Those things matter to completely contain the spread of the virus, but once someone is infected it comes down to people being healthy enough to survive any infection. Remember: uncontrolled HIV is rampant in these parts of the world. That alone probably explains a lot of the elevated mortality in this outbreak. The first world is fundamentally a different place when it comes to viruses like this. It's not something you need to worry about.

by etiam 2y ago

timr 2y ago

> That turned out to be the case with the 2022 epidemic. No, it didn't. There were less than 100,000 cases globally in the 2022 outbreak. At the peak of the outbreak, in the US, there were about 500 cases a day, nationwide. https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/response/2022/mpx-trends.html https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/response/2022/mpx-trends.h... > This is a novel virus variant which is spreading with enhanced efficacy Aside from some scary quotes in a BBC article, there's no evidence of what you're claiming. There have been less than 14,000 cases since the beginning of the year. That sounds like a lot, but we're talking about multiple countries in Africa. It's not a huge number. > My question to you then...is how many cases does it take before most "first-world" countries are in that situation as well? The USA may be better off than most due to strategic stockpiles of anti-smallpox measures, but let's say for the typical rest of them. It has nothing to do with anti-smallpox measures. Once someone has the virus, treatment is symptomatic: https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/clinicians/treatment.html https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/clinicians/treatment.html Those things matter to completely contain the spread of the virus, but once someone is infected it comes down to people being healthy enough to survive any infection. Remember: uncontrolled HIV is rampant in these parts of the world. That alone probably explains a lot of the elevated mortality in this outbreak. The first world is fundamentally a different place when it comes to viruses like this. It's not something you need to worry about.