> Not panic. But pragmatic seriousness.

the very nature of an "emergency" does cause panic, though. from what you are describing I don't see how that word can be justified. sounds more like "public health threat" or sth like that.

The problem is expressing the situation as urgent but not yet out of control in a clear and concise way that doesn’t leave the reader/listener with the idea that the problem is one that can be ignored because it is not out of control yet.

We have lots of language to say this sort of thing, but the more words you add the easier it is to be misunderstood. On a sociolinguistic level we do sort of overuse the word “emergency” but it’s primarily because we tend to do most of our “highest priority” communication with chunks of words that fit in a sound byte, or newspaper headline, or bullet point that fits on a PowerPoint slide ,or tv news lower third.

I agree with the use of emergency when desired outcome is people seeing the situation as urgent, but all this does is kick the can.

At some (I feel like close) future point, people will see “emergency” and equate it to “someone’s being cautious. This is possibly not a problem at all and therefore can be ignored.”

What’s that old saying along the lines of “intentionally use more subtle language in your writing because it gives you room to be intense later.”?

but what can be done now practically? with covid it was easy to come up with measurements - but monkeypox? I am already using condoms at the local swinger club

And here’s the failure to communicate that most concerns me… this isn’t HIV, it’s got multiple routes for infection and covering one with a condom does nothing to stop you catching it via another route.

Money pox can be transmitted via infected bodily fluids, via via contact with the blisters/lesions/“rash” that forms, via inhaling droplets of infected fluids (simplest example, heavy breathing + sweaty bodies very close together), and potentially any method where infected fluids from one body come into contact with the mucous membranes of another person, so that’s the eyes, nose, mouth, etc. Also it can contaminate surfaces so there’s a risk of infection via contaminated bedding. Only one of these is mitigated by a condom.

Effectively the only preventative options are vaccinations and avoiding exposure via the normal ways, trying to not come into contact with anyone infected (the “avoiding high risk behaviour” option) and by wearing personal protective equipment such as disposable gowns, gloves, masks... which is basically all the sort of things medical staff do to prevent the spread of all sorts of diseases around hospitals, but its a whole list of stuff you need to do and remember to do right, to the point where medical staff need training and spot checking to ensure they do it right all the time... understandably its not something the public is very well equiped to do.

Oh and it’s infectious before it’s “obvious that you have monkeypox” since the first early few days the various skin symptoms could be mistaken for a zit or pimple or other skin reaction and don’t necessarily start somewhere you regularly look at, such as behind the ear.

The wikipedia article is actually pretty informative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox other than not having a clear idea yet what's different about the new strain spreading around, we actually know quite a bit about monkeypox since its endemic to certain African animals there has been cases to study for decades, and the fact its related to the much more deadly Smallpox virus (the Smallpox vaccine is apparently 85% effective against Monkeypox) means its been an interesting virus for researchers to study, basically since we started trying to wipe out smallpox decades ago.

Edit: Missed a key point. The extra trouble is they need to "thread the needle" with their messaging to ensure what they are saying isn't misinterpreted as pointing the finger at the MSM (men who have sex with men) since they have mountains of evidence on how badly handled everything was with HIV/AIDS. They don't want the regular public assuming this is a disease only gay people can get, because its not, but the kinds of activities that are most likely to cause you to catch it are most commonly associated with gay men, which is sort of at odds with their first goal.

Everything is about context. The context in this case it that the WHO declaring an emergency might sound ominous, but I don't see the panic you are decrying. And I'll hazard a guess, you will not see panic from this declaration. I think this will be proof the WHO was historically scared of acting too quickly, particularly with COVID, and should not have. A declaration of an emergency by the WHO is not a source of panic, it's the start of a muscled response by health organizations around the world.

I feel safer that the WHO has declared an emergency, and so does the rest of the world.

The next level for the WHO is pandemic, right?