Monkeypox, Just in Time for the Midterms! Coincidence?
We’ve lived through two years of COVID. The virus and its variants continue to take lives, but the “battle” is all-but-lost. The pandemic is now endemic. Healthcare professionals are aghast. “nobody” cares, except me and a handful of other humans who still mask up.
Now, here comes monkeypox, a disease with all the fear-based aspects needed to make it the next Big Thing. The President, responding to interest from the press, made a fatherly statement saying Americans should be concerned about it.
Concerned? Concerned doesn’t even begin to check off any of the boxes that make this an all-American classic, unless you’re paranoid enough to believe Joe Biden is somehow personally orchestrating this looming calamity.
Hate-mongers are going to love monkey-pox. Let me count the ways.
Its African origins, along with the widely distributed pictures of blistered brown people are the perfect package. Some might even think the disease will cause white people to turn brown; more likely will be just another reason for racist encounters.
Murdoch’s New York Post says European cases are connected to homosexual sex at events in Belgium and Spain.
Health officials are saying it’s likely the disease will spread. WHO has recorded more than 90 cases of monkeypox in a dozen countries including Canada, Spain, Israel, France, Switzerland, the U.S. and Australia.
There is already a vaccine available. If you needed proof this outbreak is a [fill-in-the-blank] conspiracy, this should make the case.
Mark off four squares on your Crackpot Bingo, Home Edition™ card.
Monkeypox is the perfect topic for the Very Serious discussions over at QAnon social media that readers should know by now are the foundation for Republican political strategies.
Perennially paranoid types are jumping at a chance to prove that the powers-that-be cannot be trusted about anything…whatever that thing turns out to be.
“[They] planned this whole damn thing out JUST like with COVID. And now, it’s more fear porn and gaslighting from MSM...Don’t fall for the BS!” one prominent, antisemitic QAnon account posted via Telegram, the author’s brackets around “They” presumably a variation on the triple parenthesis dog whistle.
Via the Daily Dot:
A Rumble video with 40,000 views claims that the “Public Health Mafia” got “caught red-handed” planning the outbreak.
Right-wing commentator Tim Pool warned his 1.3 million Twitter followers that “lockdowns are coming,” simply because Belgium is requiring people infected with monkeypox to self-quarantine. Belgium enacted the measure after identifying four cases of the virus in the last week.
Pool’s followers chimed in with additional theories of their own. More than one opined that the outbreak and fictitious lockdowns he warned of are “just in time for the midterms.”
When it comes to the facts concerning monkeypox, it’s really hard for me not to be snide. So I’ll get these questions out of the way:
Are people really that stupid?
Are the editors and reporters who are playing this like a big deal able to sleep at night?
Don’t America’s righties have their plates already full, what with wedge issues like CRT, making young women impregnated by relatives carry babies to full term, and the burning core of America’s cities caused by defunding the police?
Ok, Okay. The facts.
This ain’t the first monkeypox rodeo. From November 2005 to November 2007, 760 cases of laboratory-confirmed monkeypox were identified through active disease surveillance in 9 participating health zones worldwide.
It’s not a “homosexual disease.” It is spread through any contact by droplets and by close contact with infected skin lesions or contaminated materials. Close family members caring for loved ones with monkeypox are a common cause in Africa, where the disease has been endemic for at least a half century.
It (probably) won’t kill you. Monkeypox cases so far have been mild, with no deaths reported. Typically, the virus causes fever, chills, rash and lesions on the face or genitals. Most people recover within several weeks without requiring hospitalization.
The existence of a vaccine isn’t a coincidence. In fact, many Americans have already been inoculated, since it’s the smallpox vaccine we’re talking about. Unless you’re one of those parents who homeschools to keep your children away from required vaccinations, your kids are already protected.
The coronavirus is a tiny, single-stranded RNA virus, which may have aided its ability to become airborne. The monkeypox virus, however, is made of double-stranded DNA, which means that the virus itself is much larger and heavier and unable to travel as far
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That’s it. Now to the really important stuff:
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 coup rehearsal will hold six hearings in June, with the first and last in prime time, where its lawyers will run through how Trump’s schemes took shape before the election and culminated with the Capitol attack.
The schedule is below. I’ll watch/listen to them so you don’t have to. It’s safe to assume that everybody but Fox news will air the hearings.
June 9: 8 PM
June 13: 10 AM
June 15: 10 AM
June 16: 10 AM
June 21: 10 AM
June 23: 8 PM
