Here are a few The world was worried about monkeypox becoming the next pandemic for several weeks during this summer. At the peak in early August the US was recording 600 cases a day, and the health authorities’ fumbling response echoed the early days of Covid-19. Vaccines were slow to arrive and in short supply for most of the fall. Testing was bottlenecked. Antiviral drugs, though they existed, were almost unobtainable because they hadn’t been federally authorized for the disease. Although most of the cases involved gay or bisexual men and can last for weeks, it was possible that this rarely fatal, but sometimes very painful, infection could spread to other people.
The world is very different today, at least temporarily. The spread of mpox had slowed dramatically by mid-December. The US, which had recorded 29,740 cases as of December 21—more than a third of the global total—was registering barely a handful each day.
One reason was that vaccines were more readily available and that testing proved to be easier. Another is that Covid is much harder to pass than mpox. But the most important, according to most, is the fact that those most at-risk took control of their safety in the early weeks, when authorities were struggling. “The success was the community mobilization,” says Joseph Osmundson, a queer activist, molecular microbiologist, and clinical assistant professor at New York University.
Osmundson assisted in brokering what may be considered a symbol for the response to mpox. A fleet of white-painted vans, with privacy-masked windows, was assembled by Osmundson. The vans contained mobile clinics for vaccines, which were operated by New York City’s health department. These vans were parked at night in bars, clubs, and other establishments that cater to bisexual and gay men between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Many parties that were held there were shut down for some time. According to the queer community, the location owners were able to identify the most vulnerable areas and agreed to park the vans outside. More than 3000 doses were administered by the van vaccination program.
The program showed a health department being smart about where to find people who needed help, but just as much, it represented a community that wasn’t willing to wait for the health bureaucracy to find them. Gay and bi men, as well as other members of the queer community, reached out to each other, badgered and agitated from the very beginning. Some who had caught the disease posted online videos or gave press interviews describing their symptoms in intimate detail, defying the risk of social shaming (“He caught monkeypox, guess what he’s been up to”) to warn others about the risks. Information was shared via WhatsApp and social media about the availability of vaccines at clinics. how to When most doctors hadn’t seen any cases of mpox, they were able to diagnose the patient. The few who received antiviral therapies before they became generally available were given advice to share with their doctor about how to navigate the bureaucratic maze that is required to authorise an individual.
Most everyone is unanimous in their belief that gay men with many sexual partners are responsible for the decline in ski slope cases. As research by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrated in the fall, men who felt at risk voluntarily abstained from sex, kept to one or a small number of partners, signed out of hook-up apps, or skipped the kind of parties where group sex happens.
