How Worried Should You Be About Monkeypox?
This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Wednesdays. On May 22, when President Biden described the global outbreak of monkeypox, a close but less lethal relative of smallpox, as a phenomenon that “everybody should be concerned about,” 109 cases had been confirmed in 14 countries outside those where the virus typically circulates, including the United States.
By May 31, those numbers had grown to just over 600 confirmed cases in 26 countries. The World Health Organization, choosing an adjective less clarifying than one might wish, described the outbreak’s risk to global public health as “moderate.” But by one definition that the W.H.O.
used to use, the former Times science reporter Donald McNeil Jr. argues, “monkeypox already is a pandemic.” How does the threat of monkeypox differ from that of the coronavirus, which questions about it still need answering, and what should be done now to contain it?
Here’s what people are saying. What scientists think they know First discovered in laboratory monkeys in 1958, monkeypox had until recently caused fewer than 19,000 cases in humans since 1970, primarily in Central and West Africa.
