Recently I projected that in the next two weeks, there would be a surge of monkeypox cases for infections caught during the nationwide Gay Pride festivities held this past weekend.
I am not the only one who anticipates the uptick, either. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has officially activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to respond to the monkeypox outbreak.
The activation of the EOC “allows the agency to further increase operational support for the response to meet the outbreak’s evolving challenges,” the agency said in a news release.This facility is currently activated for Covid-19 and is where experts monitor information on other public health emergencies, such as hurricanes, earthquakes and oil spills.
The EOC is a federal command center that monitors disease outbreaks and coordinates the deployment of appropriate emergency response measures.
It comprises over 300 CDC staff working with local, national, and international response partners in public health matters and informs emergency responders on how to stay safe during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency activated the EOC in January 2020 in response to the global coronavirus outbreak.“CDC’s activation of the EOC allows the agency to further increase operational support for the response to meet the outbreak’s evolving challenges,” the CDC said Tuesday. “The activation of the EOC will serve to further supplement the ongoing work of CDC staff to respond to this outbreak.”…In the U.S., over 240 total cases of monkeypox have been reported across 27 states, according to CDC tracking. The Biden administration has begun shipping out doses of vaccines that prevent orthopoxvirus, the family of viruses that includes monkeypox. The U.S. has enough doses of the two types of vaccines to administer to millions of people if need be, the CDC said earlier this month.
According to the CDC website, the focus of the EOC response to monkeypox will be a social media campaign directed at medical professionals and gay and bisexual men (who are most at risk of contracting the virus).
Globally, early data suggest that gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men make up a high number of monkeypox cases. CDC continues to provide guidance and raise awareness among frontline healthcare providers and public health. CDC is also raising awareness of the current situation with the public through its website and social media in addition to direct partner and community outreach.
I sure hope the public health professionals follow the actual science in this response rather than the response that supports a preferred narrative.
I must point out that many Americans are greeting this news with a great deal of skepticism.
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