It was inevitable that the World Health Organisation (WHO) would up the pandemic ante regarding monkeypox. All the signs were there such as the possibility of more dangerous variants, airborne spread and asymptomatic spread; mandatory isolation for cases, and those old chestnuts: test and trace and mass vaccination. It is reported that any reluctance on behalf of the WHO members to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern over monkeypox was overruled by Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
So, what are the facts to date regarding monkeypox? The latest estimate from the WHO is that there are now around 15,000 cases of monkeypox across the globe, a mere 0.0001% of the world population (one in a million) and a grand total of five deaths. If these deaths were evenly spread across the globe, then the case fatality rate would be 0.03% (three in 10,000). Since these are estimates and with such a disparity between cases and deaths this is also a reasonable estimate of the infection fatality rate which is the risk an individual infected person has of dying of the infection. To reiterate, the present figures indicate that you have a one in a million chance of being infected with monkeypox and if you are infected you have a three in 10,000 chance of dying.
However, mortality is not evenly distributed across the globe. The recently recorded deaths are all in Africa, which is where deaths from monkeypox always occur. The disease is endemic in West Africa and the Congo Basin where general levels of health are poor and people have access to a healthcare system described as one of the worst in sub-Saharan Africa. HIV/AIDS is also endemic which, along with malnutrition and dehydration, means that even a mild virus such as monkeypox may kill. It is estimated in Africa that the mortality rate ranges from one in a hundred to one in ten but the risk outside of Africa where people tend to have a much better level of general health and access to much better healthcare is negligible.
Moreover, the risk of catching monkeypox is even less evenly distributed across the population because the present spread of monkeypox is almost completely restricted to a single high-risk group, men who have sex with men, who constitute 95% of cases. CDC guidance is careful to state that monkeypox can be spread by any kind of penetrative sex (anal, vaginal or oral) without any specific warnings about anal sex. But if this is the case then less than 5% of cases are likely to be spread by vaginal sex which, if WHO estimates are correct, means that internationally fewer than 750 people have contracted monkeypox through vaginal sex. Clearly, the carnal act that defines ‘the love that dares not speak its name’ is a prime route of transmission but our public health officials are too woke to be so specific and careful to avoid stigmatising gay men. This seems like very poor public health advice given, as described in one case of monkeypox, the infected person had “excruciating internal and external lesions around his anus”. If people are specifically at risk for something, they ought to be told.
It is hard to understand what motivates the WHO and its Director General who, depending on one’s perspective, is either a humanitarian or a man guilty of genocide. The parallels both with the spread of the recent novel coronavirus and the less recent spread of HIV/AIDS are hard to avoid. On the one hand a flu-like virus affecting a very similar demographic to flu, after some vacillation by the WHO over the nature of the public health measures, was managed through a hysterical overreaction and curbs to essential freedoms of speech, assembly and movement. On the other hand, a disease being spread by and largely among men who have sex with men is being managed by telling us we are all at risk. To date the ensuing reaction has been less hysterical than comical as, for example, in the CDC advice to have sex fully clothed and to masturbate at least six feet away from your partner. Little do the ignoramuses who sit round a table and dream up this garbage realise that people who masturbate are usually doing so because they cannot get within six feet of a sexual partner.
It is hard to avoid the notion that there is something very contrived about the monkeypox story. One source claims that monkeypox specific vaccines have been in preparation for at least two years and since the U.S. Government recently ordered 2.5 million doses of monkeypox vaccine it seems this source may be correct. These are early days, so no figures are available for the efficacy of monkeypox vaccines but any reference to a specific monkeypox vaccine inevitably includes a mention of the smallpox vaccine, which is said to be “at least 85% effective” against monkeypox. Sounds good but, of course, this figure must refer to relative risk reduction (your vaccinated risk compared with an unvaccinated person’s), not absolute risk reduction which is your vaccinated risk taking into account the risk of getting infected in the first place. These are not the same thing and, while they converge where risk of being infected is high, they are widely divergent where the risk is low. Where the risk is negligible, as in the case of monkeypox, any advantage offered by vaccination is likely also to be negligible.
Children are to be targeted for vaccination and this is being spurred by reports of two cases amongst children in the United States. Once again, children are going to be given something that probably does not work for something they are extremely unlikely to catch and that is unlikely to have any serious consequences if they do. On the other hand, the vaccine – like all vaccines – has considerable side-effects such as: “Pain and itching at the injection site and headache, muscle ache, sickness and tiredness. About one in 10 people will have chills and fever, but these should not last more than a few days.”
Against this background of viral doom and gloom it is heartening to observe that nobody seems to give a monkey’s about monkeypox. Even the mask maniacs, lockdown fanatics and health fascists who were so quick to lecture us Covid sceptics on social media and to consign us to the ‘wrong side of history’ are silent on monkeypox. With any luck they know the game is up for the global doom-mongers.
Nevertheless, I see that the WHO is not giving up without a fight. It has appointed arch-doom-monger and fully paid up Communist Susan Michie (not a doctor) who did so much to spread fear during COVID-19 to chair its psychological nudge unit (a.k.a. the Technical Advisory Group for Behavioural Insights and Science for Health). My only advice is ‘prepare to repel boarders’; the fighting may become fierce.
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.
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Chris fighting the good fight. Well done. Keep it up.
CORRECTION:
INCORRECT.
CORRECT.
Words are important and should be used wisely.
I wonder what it would cost to privately fund a fleet of class one or two sites and start record keeping now.
The repeated adjustment of historic data is also worrying. It appears to be trying to match the recorded data to the hockey stick.
The NOAA in Amerca are doing something similar but it goes unreported. https://wattsupwiththat.com/u-s-surface-temperature/
Tony Heller is the master of identifying and calling out junk (adjusted) data, and the organisations doing it.
Ask any friend or family member, “Is it getting warmer”? I am pretty sure they will all say YES. Then ask them “Have you looked at any data? They will likely say “NO”. So how do they think they know it is getting warmer? The answer is that they don’t know at all. —Officialdom state that the global average temperature (whatever that is supposed to mean) has gone up by one degree centigrade since about 1860. No one can detect that in their lifetime. A 40-year-old person cannot detect a fraction of a degree rise in temperature over their life.
—–So no one knows it is getting warmer, they only think they do. There is only one reason they think it is warmer and that is because they are told that on their TV news nearly everyday. But even if it is slightly warmer over a period of time, that does not mean that humans caused that warming. They certainly could not have caused the similar warming that occurred in the 1920’s and 30’s as we were not emitting much in the way of CO2 from Industry, cars and aeroplanes back then.
—–So the global warming narrative goes something like this. From a dogs breakfast of a global temperature record that has been fiddled about with more than a prostitute’s knickers, government funded data adjusters have concluded that the temperature of the planet is warming and despite no human signal in the data they are determined that this alleged warming is all caused by humans. Then our governments have no choice but to “act now”.—–But bear in mind that the same solutions to the global warming scare are the very same solutions to the cooling scare back in the seventies. —-More government control over every aspect of our lives. ——This is all politics masquerading as science.
I am old enough to remember the Summer of 1959, now that was a Summer and a half, we have rarely had a summer that good, Global Warming?????????? bah humbug.
CO2 is not to blame in any way (now or in the 20/30’s), the whole “Carbon” theory is just meaningless drivel.
They can’t prove the link in a small rise of temperature over decades to increases in CO2 because the link does not exist, except in the opposite direction.
Increases in temperature over decades, slightly warm the worlds oceans which as they warm release increasing amounts of CO2 in solution. Cold water can hold more CO2 in solution than warmer water.
If the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere were 4% (as some uninformed zealots believe) and not the actual 0.042% things might be very different.
The IPCC itself have recently said that they see no human signal in the data. We can all argue about the “science” all day long but as you and I know this has nothing to do with science and never did.
The reason the Met Office won’t do anything about this issue, is if they do their whole support for dangerous heating will collapse. They need highly erroneous readings to maintain the narrative.
Yesterday (Monday 12th August) was apparently the warmest day of the year (yes it was warm, no doubting that), and the high was apparently measured somewhere in Cambridge, no idea where, or what the class of the device was, or the veracity of the actual siting!
Take away the context and the detail and that claim will be simply accepted by almost everyone, and their narrative survives intact, because only a Conspiracy theorist would challenge the MET right?
The MET spends increasing amounts on ever more powerful supercomputers so they can report how wrong they are to increasing numbers of decimal points.
Botanic gardens where the Met Orifice rushed to check the equipment – while totally ignoring the environment – a few years back to claim a new UK record which was then surpassed by 3 Typhoon fighters on the runway at RAF Coningsby. Most likely a 4 or 5 site with varying surroundings and noticeably warmer than another site nearby.
Thanks for the update, call me cynical (because I am), but I don’t expect this site to be a pristine Class 1 (or 2) site.
In fact I seem to recall in a previous Chris Morrison article the Botanical Gardens in Cambridge were mentioned!
Could be in a glasshouse!!
I read somewhere that the Botanical gardens station is read in the *morning*, so how they could quote “hottest” later on the same day is a mystery. Would need to check that ‘observation time’ though.
Warmest day of the year. In mid august? How unusual!
Well quite.
But it was probably the hottest August 12th at 16:24 since records began.
Actually it isn’t that unusual. The UK climate is extremely variable so you can tell the public anything you want and they are likely to believe it, which they mostly do. In 1995 we had blue skies here in Central Scotland all the way from April to September with not a cloud in sight. (This is easily checked). If that was to have happened this year the government, the Just Stop Oil imbeciles, the BBC and all the other climate activists would have a field day. The lunatics would be blocking us getting on planes and blocking every major City and Town by laying down in the street and gluing themselves to banks and businesses. Climate Change has become a pseudo scientific cult all because of the propaganda being spread by government and its bought and paid for media.
I was in central london yesterday – it was a bit warm at 32ish, but as you say – it’s august and summer – it’s supposed to be warm…
When will they be put in gaol for “misinformation”?
I wish I had the link to hand but at some point in the last few months someone posted a link to an essay on weather measuring which made the point that if the set of measuring stations has evolved over time so you are using MORE of them, comparisons with the past are not overly valid as you are not comparing like with like. All you can say is that we now MAY have a more accurate picture of the weather (or not as the case may be…). I think it might have been Marcus Aurelius Knew but I am not certain.
“I wish I had the link to hand”
I know DS has limited funds etc but it would be invaluable to me and I suspect other readers, to have some sort of searchable database of articles and comments.
Nothing fancy but better than the basic search function we have at the moment. So many gems get buried within a week or two and become impossible to find again.
There is a search function but no way I could see to filter it.
Mabel Cow late of these parts and now on Lockdown Sceptics subreddit was mirroring the site for a while and archiving it, but that’s long gone.
“The compliant media are uninterested” until they are implicated as the prime culprits of peddling mis/disinformation. Perhaps mass complaints to the police should be raised?