Nostalgic for panic, America? Welcome to the monkeypox hysteria!
The World Health Organization is convening a second emergency meeting to discuss whether this virus, which causes fatigue, injury and, in some cases, death, constitutes a global emergency. The CDC issues warnings and cautions.
Awakened epidemiologists say this outbreak could have been avoided if only more money had been spent on pet left-wing causes. Local health departments across the country are counting the cases and making a splash about the spread.
Everything seems familiar: the machinery of elite anxiety comes into action, just as it did with COVID. (After a brief stuttering step during which our public health “experts” assured us that worrying about the virus was deeply racist.)
This time there are some key differences. The first is the grand scale.
Since this outbreak began in January, only 9,200 cases have occurred in 63 countries, with three deaths. This is a mortality rate of 0.03% so far, based on general lowercase figures. (America alone had seen millions of COVID cases by this time in 2020). The error is simply not as transmissible, and requires prolonged close contact to propagate.
In addition, vaccines are now available. And with good health standards, such as those in the United States and Europe (where this outbreak is concentrated), the virus is unlikely to cause more than a rash, fever, and lethargy.
However, panics seem to work as hard as they can to cause a frenzy, with terrible warnings about public pools (the virus can be spread by contact with infected skin) and summer vacations.
Northwell health personnel at Cherry Grove in Fire Island, New York, on July 14, 2022, where monkeypox vaccines were administered. News via Getty Images
But no one, thankfully, seems to be paying attention.
Because? We have been inoculated (so to speak) by our experience of COVID overreaction.
The last two years have seen massive and unprecedented changes in America in the name of public health. We closed schools, causing lasting damage to children. Businesses suffocated, destroying lives and livelihoods. Funerals, graduations, birthdays: forbidden, lost and ignored.
What did these draconian efforts bring us? Nothing. The virus ravaged our population, killed more than a million and retreated like viruses do. COVID is now endemic and there is no real threat (except for the most vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, around whom protection efforts should always have focused heavily).
Why even Yale Public Health Professor and famed COVID alarmist Gregg Gonsalves (who has called for the WHO to declare an emergency) demands that we allow people to manage their own smallpox risk without shutting down society .
We would call him a hypocrite, but it is a loss of breath. The nation should be glad that these fans have lost most of their power.