I awoke this morning to a headline that seemed strangely familiar.
"Two more mpox cases detected!" it screamed at the top of page one (exclamation point mine). The accompanying story detailed how a 12-year-old boy in Calabarzon and 26-year-old woman in Manila had been infected with the African-based virus previously known as monkeypox, bringing the total number in the Philippines to 14 since 2022.
But that wasn't the only alarming headline I've seen recently. Here's a smattering of others from just the last week-and-a-half: "Quezon City shuts down club for refusing to cooperate with Mpox team," "41 placed under quarantine," and "PH experts join global meeting on Mpox." Finally, as if to sum it all up: "Mpox threat calls for strict regulation."
Oh no, I thought, where have we seen this movie before? Here's a hint: it has five letters, beginning with C and ending with D.
All of which reminds me of another recent panic, this one regarding measles in the US. Here are a few choice Los Angeles Times headlines from that lovely little episode: "Measles exposure at Sacramento site," "California has to close the gaps on measles risks," and, to add a little political spice, "As measles spreads, 'herd stupidity' grips Florida."
Florida, of course, being a relatively conservative state known for its "pandemic skepticism" as opposed to California's liberal embrace of same.
But here's the thing: I doubt most of those headline writers are old enough to remember when measles was simply a routine fact of life. Back when I was a kid — before the 1963 advent of a vaccine — it wasn't a question of whether you'd get measles, but when. And almost everybody got it, including me. The upshot: several days of feeling sick in a darkened room with a sore throat, cough, fever, and funny spots. Then, voila!, you'd get over it and celebrate your rite of passage.
Ah, but that was then, and this is now. Today, in a global culture adamantly opposed to all things unpleasant, anything violating that rule — be it hurtful speech or distasteful disease — gets roundly persecuted.
Believe me, I'm not trying to diminish the threat of mpox. And I certainly don't wish anyone ill, literally or figuratively. Wait a minute, let me revise that: I am trying to diminish the alleged threat of mpox, but only to the level of reality.
First detected around 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the disease — marked by skin rashes accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, and swollen lymph nodes — stayed home for several decades, killing 1-10% of those infected.
Two years ago, a milder version embarked on a world tour. And now it's showing up again with a mortality rate outside Africa of only.04%, according to the science journal, Nature; considerably lower than the seasonal flus.
"I don't think the risk right now...is high at all," Dr. Tish Perl, an infectious disease physician at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, told the New York Times. "But what this is telling us is that we have to be vigilant."
Which, I suppose, is why the World Health Organization declared a global emergency in August. Which then kicked off a media frenzy, including a cartoon in this newspaper depicting mpox dressed as the grim reaper knocking on someone's door captioned "Death Comes Knocking."
Again, please understand, I certainly don't oppose vigilance. What I do oppose, though, is another mass panic on the order of what happened with Covid-19. Here in the Philippines — host to the world's longest lockdown — cities were guarded, people arrested, universal quarantines imposed, and businesses and schools unilaterally shut down. Forgive me for saying this, but I believe the so-called cure was worse than the disease, inflicting economic and educational damage from which we have yet to recover.
Let me put it this way: based on the preview, I don't want to see the sequel.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist, author, and radio broadcaster with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book is A Tooth in My Popsicle and Other Ebullient Essays on Becoming Filipino.
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