It’s a diagnosis a 28-year-old Georgia resident, who didn’t want to be identified, says he’s still wrapping his head around. “I couldn’t believe I got it,” he said. He spoke to Channel 2 Action News’s Ashli Lincoln exclusively through Zoom after being diagnosed with the monkeypox virus by doctors at Emory. “Now I’m here, and now I have to get treated,” he said. He says he suspects he got the virus from his job at Six Flags Over Georgia.
“It’s just the fact that there are a lot of people that work there. There are a lot of guests that come in and out of the park every day that we operate,” he said. Channel 2 confirmed the man is, in fact, an employee with Six Flags Over Georgia. He says the park has done a great job with sanitizing in recent months, but he suspects he touched a surface or object after a co-worker who appeared to have the monkeypox virus.
“On the back side of his neck, you can see it. I didn’t touch him. I was just walking next to him; I was near him. Is it that contagious? Is it on surfaces? Like, where is it?” he said. Transmission of monkeypox typically takes skin-to-skin or other close contact to transmit, according to the Georgia Department of Health.