President Joe Biden recently warned that “everybody” needs to be concerned by the recent monkeypox outbreak – ramping up fear mongering tactics for what could be the newest pandemic used to control Americans.
Speaking with a group of reporters in South Korea before boarding Air Force One for Japan, Biden said, “Everybody should be concerned about [it],” referencing the large outbreaks reported in Africa, with some cases also being reported in Europe and the U.S.
Biden said, “We’re working on it, hard to figure out what we do.”
He said the disease is “a concern in the sense that if it were to spread, it’s consequential,” but noted his health advisers have not yet briefed him on the subject.
There are currently 80 confirmed cases of the disease worldwide and at least 50 suspected cases. The U.S. has only currently confirmed two cases after a man in Massachusetts was diagnosed with the disease and a second man in New York City tested positive for it.
Monkeypox cases have also been reported in the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Canada, France, Germany, Belgium, and Australia. Reportedly, none of the people coming down with the disease have any travel history to Africa, where the virus is most present.
Oyewale Tomori, a virologist and World Health Organization (WHO) advisory board member, said, “I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up, and there are more countries infected.”
Tomori added that the seemingly large presence of monkeypox in Western countries among people who have not traveled to Africa is perplexing. “This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West.”
Christian Happi, the director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, agreed with Tomori that monkeypox’s seemingly spontaneous emergence in the West is perplexing. He said he has “never seen anything like what’s happening in Europe.”
Although it is unlikely someone will die from the disease, WHO data estimates that monkeypox could be fatal for up to one-in-ten people.
Meanwhile Belgium has become the first country to introduce a compulsory 21-day monkeypox quarantine, according to the Daily Mail.
In accordance with this dramatic new quarantine, those who contract the virus will now have to self-isolate for three weeks, Belgian health authorities have said, after three cases were recorded in the country.
This style of lockdowns has already proven itself to be ineffective as far as combating viruses is concerned, and if other countries adopt similar policy in response it could have drastic economic ramifications for a world teetering on the brink of a global recession.