The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just presented some next level stuff when it comes to traveling during the current monkeypox outbreak. The outbreak, which has already resulted in over 200 confirmed and over 100 suspected cases in over 20 different countries has prompted the CDC to move its travel advisory from Level 1 to Level 2. Level 2 is the “Alert” level, corresponding to “Practice Enhanced Precautions.” Level 1 was the “Watch” level, which simply meant “Practice Usual Precautions.”
The CDC has a total of three possible levels when it comes to monkeypox travel advisories. The highest level would be Level 3, which is the the “Warning” level and corresponds to “Avoid Nonessential Travel.” Clearly, like golf scores and the number of times a marmot hits you in the groin with a golf club, the higher the number, the worse things are. While Level 2 does not really restrict where you can travel, as the name of the level implies, it does mean that you should be alerted to practice some “enhanced precautions.”
What are these so-called enhanced precautions? Well, the CDC lists several things that travels should avoid. One is “Close contact with sick people, including those with skin lesions or genital lesions.” So, if you are in the habit of touching other people’s lesions while you are traveling, stop it. Of course, this is probably something that you should avoid doing at any time, even when you are not traveling and even when there isn’t a monkeypox outbreak.
A second thing that you should avoid while traveling, according to the CDC, is “Contact with dead or live wild animals such as small mammals including rodents (rats, squirrels) and non-human primates (monkeys, apes).” This is presumably direct contact with such animals and doesn’t include texting or messaging via apps like WhatsApp with them, unless, of course, the messages are disturbing. This warning is due to the fact that such animals may carry the virus that causes monkeypox. Again, it’s a good idea to maintain such precautions even when a monkeypox outbreak is not happening and you are not traveling. There won’t be a time when the CDC will say, “OK, go back to having your raves with rodents now.”
The third thing to avoid is “Eating or preparing meat from wild game (bushmeat) or using products derived from wild animals from Africa (creams, lotions, powders)” to quote the CDC website. This means that consuming bushmeat burgers and wild game ganache or smearing yourself with chimpanzee cream, leopard lotion, or pangolin powder would not be a good idea. Once again these are things to avoid in general and not just during such a travel advisory.