It isn't so much that I have faith that the issues the pandemic surfaced are gone. My faith is in the difference between the two viruses and in the situation.
The coronavirus spreads much more easily person to person than monkeypox. The nature of the transmission is also markedly different. Monkeypox doesn't spread from casual contact. There haven't been documented cases of airborne transmission for monkeypox either. It spreads by close sustained physical contact. In this outbreak epidemiologically that has often been by sexual skin to skin contact or in some cases by household transmission. The nature of sexual activity in particular could provide a high dose exposure given the contact with mucous membranes, bodily fluids, and lesions. It can spread by respiratory droplets and fomites, but not as easily. Epidemiologically the fomite route has mainly been through shared bed sheets/towels, not incidental surface contact, so no need to get worried about public surfaces like public toilets.
Asymptomatic or presymptomatic transmission has also not been documented. And the incubation period of monkeypox can be quite long at ~1-3 weeks. The mean incubation period in this outbreak has been around ~9 days. This allows time for contact tracing to be effective and to contain the spread before further transmission.
Unlike with the coronavirus, we are starting off with both vaccines and antivirals. The vaccines are highly effective, and are ~85% effective at preventing monkeypox. They can work both before and after an infection. If vaccinated within 4 days of an infection the onset of disease can be stopped entirely. If vaccinated up to two weeks after an infection the severity of the disease can be attenuated. Likewise the antiviral TPOXX helps reduce the severity of the disease and duration of the disease.
We are in a much better place to contain monkeypox than we were with the coronavirus. With the coronavirus we were already behind the eight ball as it spread broadly across the US before we started testing. With monkeypox we aren't seeing that silent spread. We need awareness to respond to this outbreak and to help people reduce their risk of exposure. But we have a lot better tools to deal with this virus than we did with the coronavirus.
