Not Everyone Has to Be Equally Worried About Monkeypox

Lisa, a 30-year-old mom living in Chicago, has seen the warnings.

Monkeypox spreads through contaminated clothes, the virus lives on surfaces for months, and it might even be airborne. Monkeypox “will become established in the pediatric and general population and will transmit through daycares and schools,” a prominent doctor on Twitter declares.

Is it risky, Lisa wonders, to shop at the grocery store? Can she keep her child, born during the first year of the COVID pandemic, safe? Will she have to go back to living like she did in 2020?

“I had finally gotten to the point with COVID where I was starting to relax,” she said (Lisa requested to go by her first name only). “But when I heard about monkeypox, it was like a huge pit in my stomach. I open Twitter and see people telling me you need a full PPE suit to go outside. I can’t take living in fear for another two years, and I want to let my child live a normal life.” She’s trying to be rational about the newly-spreading virus, but it’s difficult. “I worry about monkeypox, then I don’t, then I do again, because the messaging has been pretty inconsistent,” she explains.