Let's Discuss: Mpox

Following the massive spread of a fake article reporting that 3 California schools were shutting down due to mpox (previously known as monkeypox), the US has seen a boom of misinformation about this disease and how many people it has impacted. So, let’s clear up some of the air and also dive into the current state of the world.

Mpox and the virus that causes smallpox are in the same family, Orthopoxvirus, with Mpox in particular being caused when one is infected by the monkeypox virus. However, there are two distinct types of this virus, clade 1 and clade 2, that are focused in different areas of the world. Clade 2 is the variant that the US is most familiar with, with this variant spreading across the globe in 2022. However, Clade 2 is also not the deadly variant, with over 99.9% percent of people with it surviving. Clade 2 is most common in East Africa but turned into 95,000 cases across over 100 countries in 2022 and continues to occur in the United States. Clade 1, on the other hand, is far more severe, with 10% of the people who get sick dying. However, it should be noted that as time has passed, we are starting to see the death rate reduce. Clade I is endemic to Central Africa, but it is also the variant that is spooking the nation with its recent rising numbers.

Now, back to August 2024, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Big words are scary, but these big words describe the recent upsurge in the number of Clade 1 cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in a few countries in Africa, not in the US. In fact, the Biden Administration has been preparing for Mpox since December of 2023! We also should keep in mind that the statistics for the number of people dying from these variants are coming from countries that may not have as widespread healthcare access or overall healthcare compared to the United States. The United States, and much of the rest of the world, have produced many vaccines and anti-viral medications following the COVID-19 Pandemic, and of course, the Smallpox pandemic, making it extremely difficult for a disease like Mpox to take over the world like COVID-19 did.

The US is far more prepared for Mpox than it was for COVID-19, so it is highly unlikely that we will see the full-scale lockdown that occurred in 2020 again. However, this situation raises a vital issue with our current dependence on social media for news: Misinformation is everywhere. TikTok, in particular, has been feeding the flame of this lockdown scare, with fake statistics and fake articles being used to scare people. Knowing this, we must understand that we can’t trust everything we see online. Especially with a situation as significant as a lockdown, it’s essential to fact-check what you see and understand what's really happening in comparison to the lies.