Progress! Yesterday, CNBC ran a story headlined, “Monkeypox Outbreak Is Primarily Spreading Through Sex, WHO Officials Say.” The sub-headline notes that “The most recent surge in cases appears to have been spread among men who have sex with other men.”

I told you the euphemism machine would be at its highest setting. Why can’t they just say “gay men?” Why do we need this tortuous language “men who have sex with other men?” Don’t tell me, I don’t need to know. It was a rhetorical question.

But they haven’t given up the fear, I mean public health campaign. The story explained that “WHO officials … emphasiz[ed] that ANYONE can contract monkeypox.” The gist is that they think the transmission is from close physical contact with open body sores rather than something particular to the kinds of sexual contact between gay men. So if hetero people also join up in “sexual networking” — whatever that is — and have sex with random people that have open monkeypox sores, the hetero people could catch it, too.

The fear porn continued as the article gloomily predicted, “monkeypox can kill as many as 1 in 10 people who contract the disease.” Well. We haven’t seen that yet, or anything like that kind of fatality rate. They’re just guessing, or hoping, or something. The old African figures they are referring to involve the very worst cases in third-world people who waited a long time to seek treatment.

But at least they’re acknowledging how the disease is really spreading. That is good news. Late last night, CNBC ran another article headlined “CDC Officials Sound Alarm for Gay and Bisexual Men as Monkeypox Spreads in Community.” That’s even closer to reality than the first article. The evening article includes the same silly warnings as the earlier article, but the headline says what it needed to say.

Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb apparently said, “there is a possibility now this has gotten into the community [and] if in fact it’s more pervasive than what we’re measuring right now, that becomes hard to snuff out.” Hard to snuff out?

I’m just a lawyer, not a public health expert, and I don’t know all the ins-and-outs of sexual networking, but here is a suggestion. Maybe — just stick with me for a minute — maybe if people stop having sex with other people they don’t know and aren’t married to for a while? Could that help? Take a year if they have to. Maybe THAT could “snuff it out?”

Remember all the stuff about “do it for the community,” and “if it saves just one life,” and “don’t kill grandma?” How about a tiny abstential sacrifice for grandma and the community, gay people? Will we hear those kinds of suggestions this time, do you think?

Somehow I doubt it. Somehow I think this is going to come down to them telling us ALL to take smallpox vaccines. Or, maybe I’m just being paranoid. It’s so hard to tell the difference these days.