Biden Says 'Everybody' Should Be Concerned About Spread of Monkeypox
Last edited Sun May 22, 2022, 11:00 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: The Guardian
National security adviser assures public that the US has a 'vaccine that is relevant to treating' virus. Joe Biden said Sunday that "everybody" should be worried about the spread of monkeypox recently, and his national security adviser assured the public that the US has a "vaccine that is relevant to treating" the virus.
During an official visit to South Korea, Biden told reporters, "They haven't told me the level of exposure yet but it is something that everybody should be concerned about." The president, who was speaking at Osan airbase, also added: "It is a concern in that if it were to spread it would be consequential."
Initially, Biden said the government was exploring what vaccine "if any might be available" to protect people against the virus. But later his national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US had a "vaccine available to be deployed" against the monkeypox virus if necessary. Federal Centers for Disease Control officials have previously said that people who are exposed to monkeypox, which has a slow incubation period, can be given existing smallpox vaccines to limit the sickness' severity.
Biden's first remarks on the growing outbreak of the rare virus came a day after a senior adviser for the World Health Organization said the monkeypox seemed to be spreading through sexual contact and admonished that case numbers could continue climbing over the summer as people attended festivals and other major gatherings...
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/22/biden-monkeypox-infections-spread
- U.S. President Joe Biden speaks before boarding Air Force One for a trip to Japan at Osan Air Base, Sunday, May 22, 2022, in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.
- AP, Biden says monkeypox cases something to 'be concerned about'
https://apnews.com/article/biden-health-south-korea-asia-united-states-df2d674ea2ad955cb6805128f6d33a6a
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- Monkeypox: Israel and Switzerland Confirm Cases, Explainer, BBC, May 22, '22,
https://democraticunderground.com/114228192
- AP, African scientists baffled by monkeypox cases in Europe, US, May 20, '22
https://apnews.com/article/science-health-africa-france-56c405d91f650a41593a4a03c0ab9d79
- Monkeypox cases under investigation in Canada as outbreak spreads in Europe, U.S., CBS News, May 18, '22
https://democraticunderground.com/10142918952
= new reply since forum marked as read
That is very helpful. 
My children were also born in the 1970s and it was strange for me that they didn't get smallpox vaccinations.
I.e., there was a small outbreak in the U.S. back just over a decade ago from "exotic pets" -
By Jodi Wilgoren
June 10, 2003
The Web site for the federal Department of Agriculture provides guidelines for the importation of pets. Dogs must be vaccinated against rabies. Cats going to Hawaii are to be quarantined for 130 days. Animals like sheepdogs that will be used with livestock have to be free of tapeworm. Then, at the bottom, under ''other,'' is a long list of the animals on which there are no restrictions: fish, reptiles, lions, tigers, bears, monkeys, guinea pigs, rats, chinchillas, squirrels, mongooses, chipmunks, ferrets and other rodents, for starters. That is why, officials say, there appears to be no wrongdoing behind the outbreak of monkeypox in the Midwest that apparently began with a giant pouched rat from Gambia and was passed through prairie dogs to more than 30 people in three states.
The federal Fish and Wildlife Service monitors traffic in endangered species. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bans the importation of certain animals, like primates, as pets because they are known to cause human diseases like herpes. Animals from countries with problems like foot-and-mouth disease are also regulated. But the rapidly expanding and diversifying exotic pet industry, which experts estimate generates tens of billions of dollars annually, operates largely without federal regulation, leaving a pastiche of state and local rules rife with loopholes. The U.S.D.A. licenses pet dealers but makes no distinction between selling cats and dogs, and hedgehogs and hermit crabs.
Most states allow exotic animals to be traded freely, even in casual settings like swap meets, and few towns require pet owners to keep paperwork even on their pythons or pumas. ''There's all kinds of critters out there'' that few people know much if anything about, said Merritt Clifton, the editor of Animal People, a newspaper with a circulation of 15,000 published 10 times a year from Clinton, Wash. ''They're reproducing prolifically, they're often being abandoned, there are few veterinarians that know how to treat them.'' Beyond the danger of, for instance, large cats let loose in suburban subdivisions, many experts have become increasingly concerned about the spread of disease from exotic animals to the people who keep them.
Long before prairie dogs contracted monkeypox, a virus related to smallpox, they were known to carry bubonic plague. Tortoises often have Amblyomma ticks, which can infect livestock. Reptiles can spread salmonella. And rats are vectors for a host of illnesses. ''Animal health and human health are intimately connected,'' said Donna Gilson, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture in Wisconsin, where most of the monkeypox patients live. Still, while Wisconsin requires certificates of veterinary inspection for every cow, hog, deer or elk imported into the state, it makes no attempt to track small exotics like prairie dogs. ''That would be really difficult to enforce,'' Ms. Gilson said. ''Gosh, you can have those in a box in the back of your hatchback.''
(snip)
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/10/us/monkeypox-casts-light-on-rule-gap-for-exotic-pets.html
The recent sudden outbreak in the UK happened among members of the LGBTQ community but then it seems someone took that "cluster" and projected that this was the only way it is being spread and not delving into where it came from in the first place.
We need more data about the OTHER infections to actually rule in or out "sexual contact" as a "primary" or "secondary" reason for spread. It's almost like the '80s when AIDS was called "the gay disease".
I would not be surprised if someone had an infected "pet", got bitten and infected, and away it went within their circle of contacts. And it might be hard to get an admission/confirmation from that initially-infected person if they did have an "illegal" animal as a "pet".
That is what the excerpted article I posted was about and when it was published (2003)! 
Am thinking (and may be wrong) "someone" got an infected pet from a shady dealer bringing it in from overseas, got bitten, and away it went. And if that pet escaped, look out.
The UK "cluster" might make sense for a transmission from 1 infected individual (who was exposed via an exotic animal bite or from contact with someone from overseas who was previously infected through a bite) and then was passed on to close contacts. But any other cases need to be investigated without the conclusionary insistence that it is primarily "sexually transmitted" as if it were herpes or some other STD. It's "a way" to contract it but not THE general way.
where I would think that on a full plane, smashed in a middle seat almost cheek-to-cheek, and surrounded by maskless people laughing and talking, could be an issue. 
