It's the difference between being worried that a dog is going to act wolf-like, versus a chicken is going to act wolf-like.
The herpes lineage is no joke, especially given recent evidence for long-term effects, but Orthopoxviruses has some nasty members (for humans and other economically-important species).
So it's not about Monkeypox as it exists today, but a fear of what Monkeypox might become if it changed into something it presently isn't? Because as it is, it seems to kill very few people but gives people disfiguring scars. Like chickenpox.
I can't speak for the WHO, but that would be my assumption.
And when I say "nasty Orthopoxviruses," I mean ~25% case fatality rate in the affected species, with an increased fatality rate in infants. So... pretty horrible stuff. :(
These numbers seem squishy (keep an eye on the situational caveats they note for a specific row), but lists relative CFRs for different diseases. Chickenpox probably isn't going to kill you, unless you're a pregnant mother who acquires it in a specific window: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_disease_case_fat...
The repeated mentions of chickenpox are weird. Apart from ending in the same sequence of three characters chickenpox and monkeypox/smallpox have nothing in common. The name similarity is accidental.
The herpes lineage is no joke, especially given recent evidence for long-term effects, but Orthopoxviruses has some nasty members (for humans and other economically-important species).