“The 360” shows you various perspectives on the most important stories and debates of the day.
What is happening
As cases of monkeypox continue to rise in the United States, public health experts are beginning to question whether it is too late to prevent the infectious disease, which has been endemic in some parts of Africa for decades. installed in the United States.
There were 1,800 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the U.S. on Friday, though experts say the lack of testing capacity means the true spread of the virus is probably much more widespread. “I think the window to get control of this and contain it has probably closed, and if it hasn’t closed, it’s certainly starting to close,” said Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” ” Sunday.
While some of the early challenges posed by the monkeypox outbreak echo the same main difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic, specifically the limited availability of tests and vaccines, health officials say comparisons between the two viruses only go so far. far.
Most importantly, monkeypox, although it can cause flu-like symptoms and debilitating pain, is rarely fatal. It’s not new either. Unlike COVID, which left scientists struggling to understand how it spread and how it could be treated, monkeypox was first documented in 1958. Monkeypox is usually spread by close physical contact. , often intimate, rather than through the air. There is also no need to wait months for vaccines to develop. Smallpox vaccines helped eradicate the world disease that was once devastating and have also been effective against smallpox.
Why there is debate
Experts say even the worst-case scenario for monkeypox would be nothing like the catastrophic effects of the coronavirus, which has killed more than a million Americans and 6.3 million people worldwide. world. Still, many have expressed frustration that the U.S. has struggled to contain the current outbreak with so many tools at its disposal.
The story goes on
Senator Richard Burr, R-Va., Accused the Biden administration of “not learning from the devastating effects” of COVID and other recent infectious diseases by reacting to monkeypox. His criticisms reflect those of a number of public health experts who say the U.S. is repeating the mistakes it made early in the pandemic by not increasing test and vaccine capacity quickly enough, waiting too long before mount a serious response and allow bureaucratic blockages to be maintained. on the path to more proactive mitigation strategies.
Although anyone can suffer from monkeypox, most cases of the current outbreak have been detected in men who have sex with men, a factor that some believe may have contributed to a perceived lack of urgency around of the virus. “Would monkey pox get a stronger response if it didn’t primarily affect queer people?” San Francisco supervisor Rafael Mandelman said in a speech last week. There is also concern that the prominence of infections in gay men may cause members of other groups to lower their guard, creating more space for the virus to spread throughout the population.
That follows
Federal and state health officials are working to expand the availability of tests and vaccines, but it remains to be seen whether this effort can happen quickly enough to prevent the monkey’s smallpox from spreading to a point where it can never be completely contained. . If that happens, Gottlieb said, monkeypox can become a fact of long-term life like a variety of other infectious diseases.
Perspectives
The United States has flown blindly without being able to measure the extent of the virus
“Monkeypox is unlikely to affect as many Americans as Covid-19. However, an important lesson from the last decade of epidemics of Covid-19, Ebola and Zika is that uncontrolled transmission means that a virus will not be limited to any subset of the population and will lead to unpredictable health complications. ” —Jay Varma, New York Times
As with COVID, the global response has been dispersed and self-destructive
“We should all refuse to walk blindly, allowing the present to become the prologue to a greater catastrophe. Global health officials must defend and enact a unified and coherent approach to fighting the smallpox pandemic. of the monkey before it reaches the proportions of covid-19. If we act, guided by the lessons of the last two years, we will be able to avoid the mistakes that cost millions of lives in the world. ” – Eric Feigl-Ding, Kavita Patel and Yaneer Bar-Yam, Washington Post
Appropriate strategies are available, but leaders are unwilling to use them
“Government officials around the world have a responsibility to learn from the mistakes of the COVID pandemic and not to repeat them. The transcript of the last 2.5 years is right in front of them. They will act in defense of public health or , again, will they indulge in their political acrobatics and be indifferent to human suffering? And will we, as a world population, let our governments treat us this way? ” – Muhammad Jawad Noon, American scientist
The United States will fail again and again until it builds a sustainable public health system
“The United States is at a crossroads.… It can mount an effective response to monkeypox and provide communities across the country with the infrastructure to promote health care for all. Or it can continue to catch up. in crisis after crisis and letting common infections continue to rage in between “. – David C. Harvey, Stat
Allowing the virus to spread abroad made its arrival in the US inevitable
“Rich countries have ignored the endemic smallpox of West and Central Africa for too long, despite having effective vaccines, which should be distributed equitably to at-risk populations around the world. The crucial point is that everyone these efforts must take place right now. We must stop reacting little to the latest threat of infectious diseases in the world. ” – Monica Gandhi, The Atlantic
Monkeypox is still manageable with the right strategies
“With every emerging pathogen, there is always a narrow window of opportunity to prevent small groups of infections from spreading more widely. The United States did not do this for past epidemics, including HIV and COVID-19. Monkeypox should be a relatively easier virus to control, but only if the United States takes the necessary action now. ” – Shan Soe-Lin and Robert Hecht, Boston Globe
The public’s willingness to respond to a new virus has eroded after years of fighting COVID
“Some will no doubt roll their eyes and skepticism will be high, higher than it has been in the past when we talked about infectious diseases, but these are no reasons not to act.” – Michael Wilkes, KCRW
Smallpox from the monkey is a harbinger of much more deadly outbreaks yet to come
“The biggest concern for Americans is not the disease: it’s that our response to it shows how little we’ve learned from COVID-19 and how much remains to be done to limit the risks of future pandemics.” – Richard Danzig and James Lawler, Bloomberg
Many of the same logistical problems that hampered COVID’s response have resurfaced
“The existence of a vaccine is just the beginning; deploy it, decide who needs it and where their own complicated narrative is. That work must begin now, to anticipate a growing outbreak and to maintain confidence in vaccines and public health in general. The stakes are high. ”- Melody Schreiber, The New Republic
Considering monkeypox as a gay disease poses a danger to everyone
“The more I read and hear about monkeypox, the more it bothers me a little how the media has anointed men who have sex with men as the biggest threat to our monkeypox survival.” – John Casey, the lawyer
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Photographic illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Bill O’Leary / The Washington Post via Getty Images, Getty Images