Hundreds waiting hours for a monkeypox vaccine only to be turned away. Residents taking to social media to detail struggles getting diagnosed and treated. State and local leaders demanding federal action. Emergency orders declared.
At face value, these details paint the picture of a country and state in crisis, struggling to apply lessons learned from the past two and a half years of COVID-19 response. However, scientists, public health leaders, and physicians who spoke with CalMatters said infrastructure and resources augmented during the COVID-19 pandemic have, in fact, aided the monkeypox response.
Still, it has its faults.
“What we learned from COVID is that speed is everything. When we look at the response of monkeypox later on, we’ll see speed is the main thing we take issue with,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco and member of the state’s scientific advisory committee for monkeypox.
California has the second-highest number of monkeypox cases in the country, with more than 1,300 infected residents, according to the latest state data. Gay and bisexual men have been disproportionately impacted, making up 96% of cases. Some experts say we’re already past the point of controlling monkeypox, which was first reported in California in late May.