Monkeypox: That unasked question By Monica Showalter
Scientists, it seems, are baffled by the unexplained appearance of the smallpox-like illness associated with rodents called “monkeypox” in the West which brings unsightly sores to the skin of those who are afflicted with it.
Long a disease seen mostly in parts of tropical Africa, it has now made appearances in the U.S. continental Europe, Canada, and the U.K., all at approximately the same time.
According to the Associated Press:
LONDON (AP) — As more cases of monkeypox are detected in Europe and North America, some scientists who have monitored numerous outbreaks in Africa say they are baffled by the unusual disease’s spread in the West.
Cases of the smallpox-related disease haven’t previously been seen among people with no links to central and West Africa. But in the past week, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, U.S., Sweden and Canada all reported infections, mostly in young men who hadn’t previously traveled to Africa.
France, Germany, Belgium and Australia confirmed their first cases of monkeypox on Friday.
“I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected,” said Oyewale Tomori, a virologist who formerly headed the Nigerian Academy of Science and who sits on several World Health Organization advisory boards.
“This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West,” he said.
Viruses and bacterias, of course, can mutate, which could explain the sudden rate of the spread.
But the unasked question in all of the stories cited is how the disease got here to start with.
Sure, it may have been some Armani-suited oil executive from some place like London bringing it in after accidentally touching a rail or dirty napkin at the hotel while on a business trip to Lagos.
But it seems just as plausible that it may have been the byproduct of mass immigration from unvetted illegals who are rolling into the U.S. by the hundreds of thousands — from 157 countries, with tropical Africa prominent among them. Europe, too, has allowed its borders to go effectively open, accepting everyone as either a “refugee” or “asylum seeker” and that includes post-Brexit U.K. Surprise, surprise — they too have somehow found themselves with monkeypox.
Unlike immigrants and travelers who come to the U.S. legally, who must present proof of shots, vaccinations, and sound health to U.S. Customs officials, illegal immigrants are another story. Joe Biden has released hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated, un-health-checked illegal migrants into the interior of the country, to all points, under cover of darkness to prevent unwelcome news coverage.
According to the Daily Caller:
As border encounters broke historic levels in April, over 117,000 migrants were allowed to stay in the country, according to a court filing.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported the release of 117,989 out of the 234,088 migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border in April, according to the filing. Meanwhile, DHS expelled 113,248 migrants under Title 42 or Title 8, for inadmissibility, in April.
The number of migrants authorities encountered is the highest since DHS began recording southwest border encounters.
Title 42, the Trump-era policy used to quickly expel certain migrants to Mexico, is set to end May 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced April 1. However, a federal judge indicated Friday he would make a decision on whether to grant a pause in a Republican attorneys general lawsuit against Biden before the planned end date, according to Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
Every last one of them up to date on their vaxxes and screened for communicable diseases? Don’t bet on it.
This is hardly proof that illegal migrants are bringing in monkeypox with them, but to refuse to ask that question at this point, effectively ruling that out, is junk science. The odds are more than even that an unvetted migrant may be a carrier of an infectious disease, given the lack of screening.
Now Joe Biden is planning to lift Title 42 on expelling migrants due to pandemic risks, which had kept a certain number of migrants out but certainly not all of them, including migrants who spread disease. What could go wrong?
Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID) // government work
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