Monkeypox

[hollohas]

I had to start a thread.

Monkeypox is supposedly not very transmissible and even then only by touch or bodily fluids. The first western case on May 7th. As of today there were 141 cases in North America and Europe. That's pretty rapid spread for something that's not very transmissible. The single case in France is a guy who hasn't traveled anywhere. Many cases don't have any contact with another known case. Monkeypox can't travel on it's own but it's in over a dozen countries now without past monkeypox exposure. Seems to spread more easily than thought.

SIGA Technologies just won FDA approval for a new smallpox treatment yesterday. A treatment that already has approval in Europe (where it's also approved for treatment of monkeypox). Strange timing. New FDA approval for a virus that's extinct? Why? And guess who SIGA quotes on their About page? Bill Gates. Everyone's favorite virus lover. The guy who was disappointed that covid wasn't worse.



SIGA stock up 50% today. (I'm gonna ride that train)

NTI (The Nuclear Threat Initiative) wrote a paper in Nov 2021 titled "Strengthening Global Systemsto Prevent and Respond toHigh-Consequence Biological Threats. Results from the 2021 Tabletop Exercise Conducted inPartnership with the Munich Security Conference"

https://www.nti.org/wp-content/uploa...-TTX_Final.pdf

Guess what they war gamed? A monkeypox outbreak that was identified on June 5th 2022 but started on May 15th 2022. I shit you not.

Exercise Scenario
Developed in consultation with technical and
policy experts, the exercise scenario portrayed
a deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual
strain of monkeypox virus that frst emerges in the
fctional country of Brinia and eventually spreads
globally. Later in the exercise, the scenario reveals
that the initial outbreak was caused by a terrorist
attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory
with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity
provisions and weak oversight. Te exercise
scenario concludes with more than three billion
cases and 270 million fatalities globally. As part of
the scenario development process, NTI conducted
a virtual consultation with experts in December
2020. (See Appendix A for the list of participating
experts.)

Move 1 (occurring on June 5, 2022, in scenario time) starts with an unusual outbreak of monkeypox in Brinia(population 250 million), with reports of 1,421 cases and four fatalities. There is no immediate evidence of international spread, but the outbreak takes place during a national holiday with extensive domestic and international travel by Brinians. Because monkeypox is not naturally found in Brinia, local and international experts consider this outbreak to be unusual. The Brinian government welcomes international outbreak investigations and requests medical support from the WHO. Genome sequencing of monkeypox patient samples reveals that the strain in Brinia contains mutations that make it resistant to existing vaccines.

Seriously. What are the odds that they war gamed an outbreak of a basically inconsequential virus at the very dates that it's happening in reality?