“It does not mean that gay or bisexual men are doing anything inherently wrong, or that the virus has changed or that it’s sexually transmitted, it just means that this behaviour facilitates transmission in these networks,” he told PinkNews. “We wanted to make sure people understand that transmission is not exclusive to gay and bisexual men, it just happens that it has entered this network.”

There was widespread concern, early in the outbreak, that this strain of the pox might spread the way COVID spreads—in the air when we breathe, cough, speak, laugh.

So, the sexual aspect of the viral transmission is actually a cause for relief among epidemiologists as the number of confirmed cases—around 100 in a dozen countries outside of Africa, as of Monday—slowly climbs. (No deaths have been reported.)…

Experts suspected that monkeypox tends to favor larger droplets that don’t travel as far or linger as long.