Betcha $1.00 Russia Doesn't Suffer A Monkeypox Epidemic

• No documented community transmission until 6th May 2022 
• Outbreak mainly (96%) been in homosexual and bisexual men (without history of travel to endemic countries) 
• Cases, history of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the last year (54.2%), and 10 or more sexual partners in the last 3 months (31.8%) 
• Monkeypox is being transmitted in interconnected sexual networks that sustain STI transmission
  

nakedcapitalism  |  From IM Doc at the start of the week:

Today a gay patient in his 30s showed up in the office. He is healthy and very athletic. He is a “boy” to another older gay man.

They travel the world and are into serious gay fetish play. Spanking, bondage, discipline etc.

Patient has had fever and chills and horrible headache for 3 days. A reticulonodular rash has developed but no vesicles yet. They have been playing in clubs, parties, and orgies in 4 major cities the past 2 weeks.

There are so many things in that diagnostic differential but of course monkeypox is right up there.

And of course NO TESTING IS AVAILABLE. I called all levels of health department and even CDC today. The CDC is voice mail hell. Never talked to a human. It took several hours for a health dept human but by then the patient was already gone potentially spreading the wealth everywhere. They are acting as if I was talking about the Martian Flu. Again, we have known about this two months now, and it was like I was asking for the Holy Grail. Testing? “I need to call so and so……not sure…..but I’ll get right back to you……..”. And don’t get me started about their handling of the quarantine.

I have no idea if he is really a case. Multiple tests are pending. But not monkeypox. There is apparently no blood test for that. You have to swab the vesicles. But what if we do not have vesicles yet? Or if a patient may be past the vesicular stage? Crickets.

I would like to think there is a baseline competence. But that is too much an ask right now.

Again two months all over the news and this is what we have.

We are a completely unserious nation.

Remember that IM Doc is in a wealthy destination in Flyover. Apparently the local public health officials not only think that monkeypox is exclusively a gay STD, but also that they can’t have it locally because there are no gay men in their part of the world. Did they miss Brokeback Mountain? Or the private jet landing schedule?

On top of that, the local public health officials appear unable to use a search engine. In fact, there are monkeypox tests, but as IM Doc did correctly infer, they can’t be used before the vesicles stage, which is 2-4+ days after lesions start forming. Oh, and monkeypox patients are contagious as soon as they start having lesions and potentially also during the prodome period, before rash starts.