It's weird in hindsight that we didn't develop a vaccine against monkeypox, if it still can be deadly. (Or did we and I am misinformed?) I guess now that we have outbreaks all over the world, it's probably too late to start another COVID like effort.
This makes it sound like we (perhaps inadvertently) screwed up and might now be facing pathogen that kills 1 to 10% of the infected and against which we're poorly prepared. You're better off reading something from 2022 by the same author (Ed Yong), a science reporter and Pulitzer winner for his COVID-19 coverage.
- monkey pox really doesn’t transfer easily between people. There have been cases of it being brought to Europe/Us before but very little onwards transmission
- a common transmission vector this time appears to be men having sex with men - close contact indeed
- it’s a DNA virus so it doesn’t mutate anywhere near as fast as an RNA virus like flu or Coronaviruses
- people are infectious when symptomatic
- a vaccine already exists, just isn’t in use, and the disease is fairly well understood
Additionally, with a long-ish incubation period of 1-3 weeks, it is likely that cases will still keep going up for a while while awareness increases.
But all in all, it seems like much more easily avoidable than Covid. Even so, it feels like it’s being taken seriously, which is quite reassuring.
I think it'd be more accurate to say "anal sex," rather than sex between men. There's a lot of ways to have gay sex. Men practicing oral sex and frottage are much less likely to transmit HIV, and heterosexual couples can do anal too.
How about: A person who is anti vaccination beyond reason, as in: While i.e. arguing safety concerns, making a choice that is statistically less safe without any statistically significant individual advantage over the mean of population?
Anti-vaxxer means “a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination” (emphasis mine).
That makes the vast majority in my country Sweden fall into this category, as I have yet to meet anyone who wished for a lock down or forced vaccination or vax passes, like our neighbours had.
>a person who opposes the use of vaccines or regulations mandating vaccination
But why do they do that? Because they think something is unsafe with the vaccines, right? The other alternative is that they are not interested in reducing their or their kids chances of death from some disease. But that is not possible, and once you eliminate that only the former ones remain.
> the other alternative is that they are not interested in reducing their or their kids chances of death from some disease. But that is not possible
That's a bold claim. There's plenty of people against resuscitation, blood transfusion, organ transplants and other medical practices that are safe and clearly save lives. Like in the case of vaccines, some people have other values guiding them, and one of these principle is not having something imposed on them.
Regarding vaccines, safer than what, exactly? How "safe" is "safe enough"?
Have you ever compared the safety profile of vaccines vs other commonly used medication?
But where are the groups for "anti-organ transplants", or "anti-blood transfusion" etc? One does not often come across references to them on online forms, I think. So clearly we are talking about a substantially large population here.
>How "safe" is "safe enough"
Quite subjective, so I am not going to answer that. But that is also besides the point.
Point is people are called anti-vaxxer, if they doubt the safety of vaccines. Case in point is given below.
> But where are the groups for "anti-organ transplants", or "anti-blood transfusion" etc? One does not often come across references to them on online forms, I think
Conveniently leaving out DNR, I see :)
> Point is people are called anti-vaxxer, if they doubt the safety of vaccines
People are called anti-vaxxers for a number of reasons, including - but not limited to - the one you mention.
> Then I think that group asking for safer vaccines should be called "safe-vaxxers", right?
Sure, if you get the general speakers of English to agree on it, it might reflect a nuance that the current term misses.
I have the feeling though that most people don't care, since the term "anti-vaxxers" is not used by sociologists or by people that do not want to be vaccinated for reason X, and is instead used by the average person in an argument.
I oppose the mandating of vaccines while believing they are generally safe and effective, stayed up late to sign up and drove a substantial distance to ensure I got a COVID vaccine on literally the first day I was eligible and our family was all vax’d within the first week of eligibility.
I’m pro-vaccine.
I believe in individual autonomy over their body and, while I’d try to convince anyone to choose to get the vaccine, if they won’t choose that, I don’t feel like society should have the right to impose it.
I’m anti-mandate (on philosophical grounds not safety grounds).
I’m pro-vaccine and anti-mandate. If you want to call that position “anti-vax”, so be it; I don’t believe I have the right to mandate the language you choose either.
I’m anti-mandate (on philosophical grounds not safety grounds).
Those are anti-safety philosophical grounds, though. Without mandates we'd have significantly higher child morality. We'd also be talking about smallpox rather than monkeypox outbreaks.
Not really, because this argument implies that a human being is in danger if not vaccinated. Which is not really the case, because there is a thing called "Natural Immunity", which fights off thousands of pathogens every day.
A vaccine is like wearing a bullet proof pendant on top of a kevlar vest. It can save your life if you are hit by a bullet exactly on the pendant, AND your vest happen to have a weak spot exactly behind the pendant.
No, a vaccine is not like wearing any kind of vest because controlling infectious disease is a population-wide endeavor. And again, some people had natural immunity to smallpox. It also killed several 100 million people in the last century alone.
The analogies and abstractions tend to obscure the implications of the commenters professed ideals. Nobody ever seems to say 'I believe in absolute bodily autonomy and don't mind it precludes the eradication of one of the deadliest diseases to ever plague humankind'.
The definition was changed recently in order to put people who were concerned about the side effects of highly experimental COVID vaccines into the same category as people who think that proven vaccines, like MMR, cause autism or something.
COVID was a crisis that closet authoritarians within the world's governments took as an opportunity.
Cases and transmission outside Africa have happened before, but usually in low-single-digit numbers, eg someone contracts the disease in Africa, some household members catch it, end of story. Now we’re easily in double-digits, perhaps into three now across Europe, seemingly from a single original case.
Plenty of reasons not to be too concerned, equally it is rising quickly if things are left as is.
they mention the monkeypox virus being used by Russia in their bioweapons program. I don't believe it would make any sense for them to use it now, but on the other hand, Putin hasn't been behaving rationally for a while.
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[ 54.3 ms ] story [ 1669 ms ] threadhttps://twitter.com/edyong209/status/1527358140941234176
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/05/monkeypox...
https://www.axios.com/2022/05/20/smallpox-vaccine-order-monk...
https://twitter.com/edyong209/status/1527356834260013058
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/05/monkeypox...
- monkey pox really doesn’t transfer easily between people. There have been cases of it being brought to Europe/Us before but very little onwards transmission
- a common transmission vector this time appears to be men having sex with men - close contact indeed
- it’s a DNA virus so it doesn’t mutate anywhere near as fast as an RNA virus like flu or Coronaviruses
- people are infectious when symptomatic
- a vaccine already exists, just isn’t in use, and the disease is fairly well understood
Additionally, with a long-ish incubation period of 1-3 weeks, it is likely that cases will still keep going up for a while while awareness increases.
But all in all, it seems like much more easily avoidable than Covid. Even so, it feels like it’s being taken seriously, which is quite reassuring.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/monkeypox-cases-confirmed...
Wouldn't it be equally likely if a man had sex with a woman? Why has the transmission been more likely for two men to have sex?
People who does not want to reduce the chances of them or their kids dying of some diseases? Please enlighten me..
That makes the vast majority in my country Sweden fall into this category, as I have yet to meet anyone who wished for a lock down or forced vaccination or vax passes, like our neighbours had.
But why do they do that? Because they think something is unsafe with the vaccines, right? The other alternative is that they are not interested in reducing their or their kids chances of death from some disease. But that is not possible, and once you eliminate that only the former ones remain.
So that means, they just want safer vaccines, no?
That's a bold claim. There's plenty of people against resuscitation, blood transfusion, organ transplants and other medical practices that are safe and clearly save lives. Like in the case of vaccines, some people have other values guiding them, and one of these principle is not having something imposed on them.
Regarding vaccines, safer than what, exactly? How "safe" is "safe enough"? Have you ever compared the safety profile of vaccines vs other commonly used medication?
But where are the groups for "anti-organ transplants", or "anti-blood transfusion" etc? One does not often come across references to them on online forms, I think. So clearly we are talking about a substantially large population here.
>How "safe" is "safe enough"
Quite subjective, so I am not going to answer that. But that is also besides the point.
Point is people are called anti-vaxxer, if they doubt the safety of vaccines. Case in point is given below.
https://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c4001.abstract
If such laws were proposed, you’d rightly hear people objecting to them.
Conveniently leaving out DNR, I see :)
> Point is people are called anti-vaxxer, if they doubt the safety of vaccines
People are called anti-vaxxers for a number of reasons, including - but not limited to - the one you mention.
Was not intentional.
> People are called anti-vaxxers for a number of reasons, including - but not limited to - the one you mention.
Then I think that group asking for safer vaccines should be called "safe-vaxxers", right?
Sure, if you get the general speakers of English to agree on it, it might reflect a nuance that the current term misses.
I have the feeling though that most people don't care, since the term "anti-vaxxers" is not used by sociologists or by people that do not want to be vaccinated for reason X, and is instead used by the average person in an argument.
I’m pro-vaccine.
I believe in individual autonomy over their body and, while I’d try to convince anyone to choose to get the vaccine, if they won’t choose that, I don’t feel like society should have the right to impose it.
I’m anti-mandate (on philosophical grounds not safety grounds).
I’m pro-vaccine and anti-mandate. If you want to call that position “anti-vax”, so be it; I don’t believe I have the right to mandate the language you choose either.
Those are anti-safety philosophical grounds, though. Without mandates we'd have significantly higher child morality. We'd also be talking about smallpox rather than monkeypox outbreaks.
Different people can have different philosophies about the optimal tradeoff. Some would choose safety over liberty; others liberty over safety.
Not really, because this argument implies that a human being is in danger if not vaccinated. Which is not really the case, because there is a thing called "Natural Immunity", which fights off thousands of pathogens every day.
A vaccine is like wearing a bullet proof pendant on top of a kevlar vest. It can save your life if you are hit by a bullet exactly on the pendant, AND your vest happen to have a weak spot exactly behind the pendant.
The analogies and abstractions tend to obscure the implications of the commenters professed ideals. Nobody ever seems to say 'I believe in absolute bodily autonomy and don't mind it precludes the eradication of one of the deadliest diseases to ever plague humankind'.
No, I said natural immunity is like a vest. Vaccine is like wearing a tiny pendant on top of this vest.
The same principle applies when doing it through the proxy of the state and the vote.
COVID was a crisis that closet authoritarians within the world's governments took as an opportunity.
- commenter in thread
So what's the big deal?
Plenty of reasons not to be too concerned, equally it is rising quickly if things are left as is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#2022_outbreak
they mention the monkeypox virus being used by Russia in their bioweapons program. I don't believe it would make any sense for them to use it now, but on the other hand, Putin hasn't been behaving rationally for a while.