How Easy Is It to Get Monkeypox?
Monkeypox is now definitely more widespread than a few cases : New York, California, and Illinois are declaring emergencies , and the World Health Organization is calling it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
In the context of this spread, people are starting to wonder if we need to worry about getting infected in random situations, like trying on clothes in a store (since the virus can be reportedly transmitted through clothes). But how easy is it really to get monkeypox?
Do I need to worry about monkeypox at all if I am not a sexually active gay or bisexual?
It is important to know that monkeypox is easily transmitted through sexual contact, but also that sex is not the only way the virus is spread . For example, if a child has monkeypox, it does not mean that he has been sexually abused. In previous outbreaks, when people contracted monkeypox from animals, it didn’t mean they had sex with animals. Good? But as the virus spreads in LGBTQ communities, it’s important that people in these communities are aware of the risk and take precautions , such as not sharing sex toys and watching for sores on their partner.
With any infectious disease, your risk depends on many factors, and one of the main factors is the likelihood that you will encounter people who are already infected. If you live in New York or San Francisco and have a lot of connections with other men, your chances of meeting someone who can give you monkeypox are pretty high.
On the other hand, if you’re not in one of the few urban areas where it’s spread, and you’re not in a high-risk group, your chances are much lower. Not zero, but low enough that you probably don’t have to take any special precautions in your daily life.
Can you get monkeypox in random public places?
I was recently using a public restroom in a highway rest stop when the thought suddenly occurred to me: I wonder if you can catch monkeypox from a toilet seat? (I was still sitting on the toilet seat, but I made a note to myself so I could watch it later.) Shortly after, a colleague asked if it was possible to get monkeypox while sitting in a movie theater seat that a monkeypox-infected person had. sat before. And I’ve seen several posts on social media warning people that it’s no longer safe to try on clothes in stores because who knows who’s tried on that outfit before you?
At the time, I wasn’t sure how many of these scenarios were reasonable and which were paranoid. After all, the CDC notes that the virus can survive and travel on clothing, bedding, and towels . So I called epidemiologist Katherine Jacobsen, professor of medical research at the University of Richmond.
She noted that, for one thing, apart from emergency announcements, there aren’t many people with monkeypox. This may change if the disease becomes more common, but right now – especially if you live outside of a big city – it’s very unlikely that a person with monkeypox will be shopping in the same store as you, much less trying on the exact same pair of jeans. which you now bring to the fitting room. Even in a movie theater, the likelihood of a virus jumping onto a seat and then onto your body in such a way that you get sick is negligible.
But okay, let’s say there’s an outbreak of monkeypox in your city. What then? “We are most concerned about things that infected people have had long-term contact with,” she says. Clothing that an infected person has worn all day, for example, or bed linen that they have slept on night after night, where there is enough time for the scabs or fluid from their sores to rub into the tissue.
Similarly, studies that look at how long the virus lasts on surfaces are being done in places like hospitals where people are very sick (and therefore likely to have many lesions) and spend a lot of time touching bedding and objects in their room. . These items will have a lot of virus on them, not just a little smudge here or there.
What’s more, just because a virus shows up on surfaces doesn’t mean it can easily infect someone. A 2019 study found that monkeypox only spread about 8% of the time among people living in the same household .
So no, Jacobsen isn’t bothered by the examples I’ve given, although she points out that as an epidemiologist she’s already the kind of person who avoids touching doorknobs or borrowing other people’s jackets.
Where else could monkeypox spread?
Right now, we know that the virus is mostly circulating among men who have sex with men, but we have little information about where else it might be, especially since access to testing is difficult. Not surprisingly, the majority of positive cases are in the same population that was classified as high-risk and subjected to the most tests.
(Jacobsen notes that a case of monkeypox with very few lesions could easily be confused with another disease, but if people outside the MSM community routinely turned up in doctors’ offices with classic monkeypox symptoms, they would be hard to ignore. and we’d see spikes in CDC reports of “probable” or “suspected” cases.)
If this virus becomes more common, it may show up in other conditions. My first thought was kindergartens; children there are constantly in close contact with each other, and many other diseases are easily spread in this way – ask any parent whose child has had foot and mouth disease. Jacobsen notes that the standard cleaning routine in kindergartens provides a good start to any potential spread of monkeypox there, but if the virus becomes more prevalent, expect enhanced sanitation and new rules on how to stay home if your child has suspected monkeypox.
She also pointed out that MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ) is another skin-borne disease that spreads easily among sports teams , both from player to player and through contaminated surfaces such as wrestling mats.
Congested areas where many people live in close contact with each other have also been suggested as potential monkeypox foci. These include places such as nursing homes and prisons .
But for now, this is all speculation. There is not enough research on monkeypox to know if it can spread in the same way as MRSA or hand-knee-mouth infection under these conditions. They seem to have the right ingredients to spread the virus, but only time will tell for sure.
Is monkeypox transmitted through the air?
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we thought the coronavirus was spread by surfaces (hence handwashing) and airborne droplets that only travel short distances (hence the six-foot rule). When it was confirmed that the virus could float in smaller droplets, it was considered airborne and masks and ventilation became much more important.
Monkeypox is still not considered airborne. It is assumed that it is transmitted by airborne droplets. It is difficult to study airborne transmission separately from skin-to-skin transmission because both require close contact. This happens “if you were close enough that someone’s saliva could hit your face when they exhaled, or the moisture from their breath could land right on your face,” Jacobsen says. For example, it’s not something that requires you to wear a mask when you go shopping.
However, there is a good reason to wear a mask, and that is that we are still in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more cases than ever (although thankfully not as many deaths as in previous waves). .
When it comes to monkeypox precautions, most of us don’t need to do anything different from what we’ve already done, but if you suddenly feel a lot more interest in disguise, that’s understandable. If the virus continues to spread, we may want to pay more attention to handwashing and surface disinfection. If that happens, Jacobsen points out that, especially for immunocompromised people, it wouldn’t be too paranoid to avoid crowds or even wear long sleeves when you expect to run into strangers in public places.