Thursday Throughput: Monkeypox Edition

not listed, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

[ThTh1] So … monkeypox. Are we about to go back into lockdown? Do we need to live in terror? Is this the beginning of a Planet of the Apes collapse of human society?

Naaah.

So, here’s the story on monkeypox. It is DNA orthopoxvirus — that’s the family that includes things smallpox. Endemic to Africa, it occasionally flares up when people come in contact with infected animals or infected animal meat. It is somewhat contagious in humans but requires close contact to spread. There are two different strains — one with a 10% fatality rate and one with a 1% fatality rate. But those are for untreated monkeypox. When the less dangerous one broke out in the United States in 2003, at least 70 people were infected but no one died. Monkeypox has long been considered a candidate for an incident, with exercises run within the last decade simulating a monkeypox outbreak.

The current outbreak has seen over 300 cases in 21 countries all over the globe. What’s more, most of the cases did not involve exposure to animals or meat; it seems to be spreading in communities. While it’s not clear where the outbreak began, it does seem to be hitting gay male communities, at least initially, which indicates that it is being spread by sexual encounters, which can produce the kind of close personal contact needed to spread the disease.

The good news is that monkeypox is running into a public health community already on a war footing. We detected the outbreak early and are doing contact-tracing. There is talk of doing ring immunization using either the smallpox vaccine (which is 85% effective against monkeypox) or a new monkeypox vaccine. We’ve already gotten genomic sequencing — which is an amazingly fast timescale — and this does not appear to be a new strain.

In short, this is something to keep an eye on but it’s not another COVID-19. It is something we have studied for years. It is far less infectious and, more importantly, it lacks COVID-19’s talent for making people infectious before they know they’re sick. Even in the worst case scenario, we already have a massive group of people that have high resistance — those old enough to have been vaccinated against smallpox. And we have not one but two vaccines ready to go for the rest of us.

However, this a reminder that we need to keep our guard up. COVID-19 is not the last viral challenge we will face. The world is flat. And increasing human population and global warming may drive further outbreaks. If you like, we are entering a state of cold war against disease that will occasionally flare up into hot wars like the COVID-19 outbreak. Now is not the time to relax; now is the time to be more vigilant.

[ThTh2] And speaking of COVID, the latest variants are showing immune evasion, both to vaccines and “natural” immunity. It’s likely we will get a big push later this year for boosters or bivalent vaccines.

[ThTh3] The best thing about the discovery that scallops like disco lights is that it was discovered accidentally while trying to lure crab with disco lights. Of course, I know many older people who got grabs under disco lights in the 70’s, but that’s another column.

[ThTh4] Forensic science is being challenged like never before, particularly the issue of bias. Why this field doesn’t routinely use double-blind testing is a mystery to me.

[ThTh5] In case, like me, your view of the eclipse was blocked by clouds:

The All-sky camera at @GeminiObs South got a pretty good view of the Lunar eclipse last night! Note the very sharp decrease in brightness between 12-17 seconds! #discovertogether #Eclipse #EclipseLunar #Eclipse2022 @NOIRLabAstro @NOIRLabAstroES pic.twitter.com/raOZFa9RyT

— US National Gemini Office (@usngo) May 16, 2022

[ThTh6] Mars apparently got whacked by something during the Trump years. One sympathizes.

An impressionist painting? No, it’s a new impact crater that has appeared on the surface of Mars, formed at most between September 2016 and February 2019. What makes this stand out is the darker material exposed beneath the reddish dust [source: https://t.co/FCASRUOUFa] pic.twitter.com/9PN5YTS1AT

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 15, 2022

[ThTh7] This is seriously cool. It’s possible birds use quantum mechanics to navigate. Seriously. Apparently their eyes can detect small variations in blue light causes by the Earth’s magnetic field.

[ThTh8] Occasionally, the other authors on this site bring my attention to important scientific breakthroughs:

This checks out right @Hal_RTFLC ? I mean Brian is an actual, not amateur, astrophysicist so it is obviously legit. pic.twitter.com/Xx8Be9cqRL

— Em (@wvEsquiress) May 11, 2022

[ThTh9] Is the solution our rare mineral woes in outer space? It could be. I talked about mining asteroids in my “Don’t Look Up” video. If we can bring down the cost of launching thing into space, asteroid mining becomes a very real possibility.