Title 6

Epidemiologists have stressed that monkeypox can still transmit among other groups of people, although the risk to non-MSM at this time does remain low. Monkeypox has tended to present relatively mildly during this outbreak and has caused no deaths outside of the 11 African nations in which the virus has become endemic since it was discovered in 1970. Nevertheless, 18 gay men who contracted monkeypox told NBC News how it can cause unsightly and in some cases debilitatingly painful skin lesions — and has left them stuck glumly inside. “The thought of a full three-week quarantine is pretty scary,” said John, 32, a New York City tech worker who believes he contracted monkeypox from a guy he hooked up with during a recent trip to Los Angeles for the city’s Pride events. “I’m just feeling disappointed and bummed out. It was a bummer to miss celebrating Pride” in New York. John is among the swiftly expanding group of 560 U.S. residents diagnosed with monkeypox thus far — a figure experts believe is a vast undercount of the true case number, given woefully insufficient testing. California, New York, Illinois and Florida are the states with the highest numbers of confirmed cases.