China Hints at Quarantines for Monkeypox

China’s state-run Global Times on Sunday used the World Health Organization’s (W.H.O.) controversial declaration of a global monkeypox emergency to demand quarantines for the disease, throwing in some sneers at the Western world for trying to live with the Wuhan coronavirus instead of imposing the devastating citywide “zero-Covid” lockdowns China insists upon.

“Although monkeypox does not transmit as fast as the still ravaging novel coronavirus strain, if it is not effectively controlled, a combination of coronavirus and monkeypox may become a sort of new normal in the West. Worse still, the way the West has dealt with the [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic hardly makes one feel optimistic,” the Global Times hissed.

Human rights advocates have criticized Beijing’s brutal lockdowns for infringing on the rights of Chinese citizens, subjecting them to humanitarian hardships such as the loss of access to medical care for other conditions and severely damaging the economies of locked-down cities.

The Chinese government angrily insists that its “zero-Covid” program of perpetual mass testing and chronic lockdowns is the only rational response to the coronavirus, an argument repeated in the Global Times’ demands for more stringent measures against the far less contagious monkeypox.

The editorial derided Western pandemic strategy as “laying flat” and “letting disease run wild” while accusing the West of approaching China’s supposedly superior zero-Covid agenda with a “sour grape mentality.”

“What we have seen is absurd: a group of deserters slandering their companions who are still struggling in the fight. This leaves the health and life of the Western public in danger,” fumed the state media organ of the regime that unleashed the coronavirus upon the world.

The Global Times suggested the West is only taking monkeypox seriously because it is the “epicenter” of the outbreak, particularly hotspots like Britain, Belgium, and Germany. Those three nations have recommended 21-day quarantines for monkeypox victims, but the Global Times derided those recommendations as inadequate and scoffed at the United States for being slow to impose quarantines at all.

“Unlike the [Chinese coronavirus] pandemic, there is no China factor involved in the monkeypox outbreak. Therefore, there is little room for the West to exploit the issue and to pass the buck to others,” the Chinese Communist paper huffed.

The Global Times quoted Chinese “experts” who confidently predicted the West would be “defeated” by monkeypox, a bold assertion given that the total number of cases remains low enough that W.H.O.’s panel of advisers did not think a declaration of global public health emergency was warranted. The panel was overridden on Saturday by W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The W.H.O. panel acknowledged that coronavirus cases have spread more rapidly than expected, but the outbreak remains largely contained within a specific risk group, namely promiscuous gay men. Some virologists feel that even if that group remains the primary vector for spreading monkeypox, the number of infections could grow until the disease “takes root” in Europe and America.

Another Global Times article on Sunday boasted that China, unlike the free world, is ready to pounce on monkeypox the instant it reaches China’s shores:

Under the suggestions of the WHO and the deployment of China’s National Health Commission (NHC), prior to the WHO’s declaration, hospitals across China have prepared to sound an alarm over potential monkeypox cases, a medical expert from a provincial-level epidemic control command center surnamed Shang told the Global Times on Sunday.

Hospitals have organized medical experts and doctors in all departments, especially the infectious diseases department to study the virus in seminars before any cases are reported, and some local health departments have even spread monkeypox-related information to communities, allowing the general public to be aware of its existence, Shang told the Global Times.

Fever clinics in Chinese hospitals are capable of screening for monkeypox, because local hospitals have already established procedures to respond to [Chinese coronavirus] cases which can be used to monitor monkeypox as well, Shang noted.

The Global Times described a legion of Chinese doctors poised to strike as soon as a foreigner brings monkeypox across China’s tightly controlled borders, a squadron of Chinese biotech corporations chomping at the bit to churn out nucleic acid test kits for the disease, and Chinese pharmaceutical giants ready to develop vaccines in “roughly a year.” China’s coronavirus vaccines do not work terribly well, but they can hope for better luck with monkeypox.

Western drugmakers have already developed some effective monkeypox vaccines, as it is a form of smallpox, and counterterrorism experts have long worried about attacks using weaponized smallpox. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week ordered another 2.5 million doses of an effective vaccine called Jynneos since modest stockpiles of the medicine were exhausted due to fears over monkeypox outbreaks in places like New York City. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also said last week that monkeypox testing capacity has been increased by more than tenfold to cope with the outbreak.