That monkeypox thing...

 I just feel a certain existential weariness about it.

Look, we aren't understanding it well, it's being pop-newsed in a way that's bad:

1. It's not exclusively, or even mainly, a "gay disease." For one thing: gay men tend to be vigilant about health stuff because of the whole AIDS thing, so they tend to report stuff like this more readily. However: children have already turned up with monkeypox. Not clear to me if they contracted it from an ill family member, or from touching something a patient touched.

2. Yes it can spread through sexual contact but it can also spread through handshakes, touching stuff (maybe) that someone with monkeypox touched, and by being close to someone with monkeypox if they cough or sneeze. So transmission is kind of COVID 2.0, but with more tactile routes.

3. It's not just carried by monkeys. Correctly, here, it should probably be called rodent pox. There was an outbreak in 2003 traced to people having pet prairie dogs. (I will reserve my screaming about turning a wild animal into a pet for another time)

4. Yes it's endemic in some parts of the world but it isn't here, and we don't WANT it to be here. We don't WANT more circulating diseases.

Anyway: as I watch the progression of this, I feel a sense of doom, that we're gonna mess this up just like we messed up a lot about COVID, and it's going to mean more deaths than we might have otherwise (granted, the IFR of monkeypox is well below COVID, at least, well below OG COVID) and a LOT more misery than we might have.

A few weeks ago I heard of Canada planning a ring-vaccination scheme (that is: vaccinate those who have been exposed and their close contacts) and I briefly felt hope but we don't seem to be doing that here.

And yes: we have a vaccine for it, but.

You know? Given how I reacted to the latest COVID booster I think I need to give my body a few months before challenging my immune system again with a vaccine. Even my doctor, who has been urging me to take the shingles shot, told me I needed to wait a few months for that. So if monkeypox starts screaming through the population here, I have the Hobson's choice of "take a vaccine that might lead to you being sick for a week or even worse, or risk getting an unpleasant but not-likely-fatal disease"

And also: the whole "here comes Round II of people concerned about their health or that of immunocompromised loved ones needing to distance, isolate, mask (and probably this go-round? Sanitizing surfaces actually does something. I am NOT looking forward to being the disinfectant patrol in my classrooms again). And I'm sure the rest of the population will do Sweet Fanny Adams about it, so once again, we're on our own here. (I have a friend on  long term chemo, so yes, I try to be careful because I don't want to transmit anything to her.)

I'm tired. It's been a hard, hard three years (Yes, I count it from the date of my dad's death - the anniversary is on Wednesday) I've got other stressors in my life right now. And it just feels like monkeypox is one thing too many. 

Yes, I know, my need to worry about it is probably minimal - as a weird loner without close human contacts, I'm unlikely to contract it. But it's just....the VIBES of it (as the cool kids might say). It's very much a "same [stuff], different day" feeling to me in this - that we're gonna have the same stupid things happening (with the added overlay of some people getting to take their dislike of gay men out for a walk) as we've had happen before and I just....I don't want to see it. I don't WANT this re-run. I want something nicer and better but instead we're stuck in the gritty reboot of the 1970s or the 1950s or whatever this is and I don't like it. 

I have to run to Target this week (wal-mart failing to stock a couple things I need, but can't mail order because of perishableness) and I'm frankly wondering if I should stock up on TP in advance of another wave of shortages of consumer goods.