Monkeypox is very unpleasant and it spreads very fast, but it's not a real killer: 16,000 cases in 75 countries in just a couple of months is impressive, but there have been only five deaths.
Yet the World Health Organization (WHO) has just declared monkeypox a global health emergency, which is a big deal. The only other infectious diseases in that category are Covid-19, which has already killed 6.4 million people, and polio (which is trying to make a come-back). Targeting monkeypox seems disproportionate, but there's a reason.
"Covid-19 is broadly viewed as being a 'once in a lifetime' or 'once in a century' pandemic. Modelling work based on historical data shows that this is not necessarily the case," reported the epidemiological start-up Metabiota last year. That's because "the frequency of 'spill-over' infectious diseases like Covid is steadily increasing".
