Mpox is still around, scientists concerned that mpox will be neglected, Dem administration seems to be indifferent. Update 1.
Local Dallas leadership doesn't seem to care at all.
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Note: Links to previous reporting on mpox at the end of this post.
Introduction
Mpox is still here in Dallas county and the problems I reported with the Dallas County Public Health response are still here. Since last reporting 12/19/2022 there have been 25 new cases as seen on the Dallas Count Health website on 5/29/2022. Dallas County Health still can’t be bothered to put dates on their tables. Roughly we can project about 40 to 60 cases for 2023.
Yet, it seems mpox isn’t a focus of the Biden administration or our local establishment.
The concern over the neglect of mpox is globally felt by scientists.
Update 1: There have been those who criticized this post saying I was being paranoid. This is the Dallas Morning News article on the possible resurgence. It came out several days after my post and doesn’t criticially review the poor response to this epidemic. Dallas Vichy Voice might do a report, later because its readers will wonder why they are reading about this in the Dallas Morning News.
Scientists fear mpox will be neglected.
The title of the article in Nature magazine, one of the two most pestigious magazines in the English speaking world is, “‘The disease will be neglected’: scientists react to the WHO ending mpox emergency.” This is the link to the article.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01581-1
The article points out that the problem of mpox needs more attention and it seems that the focus is going to be diminished.
Titanji says that the coming Northern Hemisphere summer might encourage infection spread. “We’re beginning to hear about reports of new clusters of cases, some of these cases being reported in people who were vaccinated last summer — and there’s still lots of things we don’t understand about this virus and how it’s moving within populations,” says Titanji. “These questions need to be addressed before we take a victory lap and say, we’re done with this.”
“Large swathes of the population do not have immunity against mpox,” she adds. “If the disease is introduced into the right networks by travel, by festivals and all that happens around the summer, then it’s not unrealistic that we may yet again see surges in this outbreak.”
Also, they point out that mpox is still not fully understood in how it might spread.
It seems though, that since it is identified currently as a disease only impacting men having sex with men, it isn’t a priority. It doesn’t seem to be a concern with the LGBT+ establishment either.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett
I raised similar concerns as mentioned in the Nature magazine article and other concerns with the Dallas response with U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crocket and I haven’t gotten a reply. It is about four months since I sent the letter.
Follow up study has confirmed that Jynneos vaccine is effective.
There is one item of good news. It wasn’t clear how well the mpox vaccine was going to be, but in reading this rather long report, it appeas that the vaccine is 88% effective with two doses which is fairly good.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7220a4.htm
Status of mpox in Dallas County
The sloppy reporting of mpox statistics is still happening, but I have been doing dated screen captures, but the actual dates of these tables might be up to 7 days off. Dallas Public Health doesn’t date the tables.
This is screen captured in 5/29/2023. It is still 98.5% men for all cases todate. For new cases it has been 24 men and 1 woman.
This was screen captured in 12/19/2022.
This was screen captured 5/29/2023. The increase in the number of cases has been Asian/Pacific Islander 0; White 22, “Black” 29, Hispanic 52. You can see that the Hispanics are getting mpox two or three times relative to their population among MSM, but I doubt Dallas City Council member Omar Narvaez even knows, and I think even if he knows, he likely doesn’t care.
These are two tables screen captured on 12/19/2023. (Or I typed the date into tables.)
Vaccine availability isn’t general, you still have to get it with Dallas County or specific social welfare groups. You can’t just go get it from a doctor or a pharmacy. Vaccination was controlled since there was a possible shortage. There will be some closet men who won’t go to a social welfare agency to get vaccinated.
By the way, if you haven’t gotten a mpox vaccination, you need to get it now. If mpox does become a problem for the general heterosexual population, it will likely be extremely difficult to get vaccinated because there will be no where near enough vaccine to go around.
About Gay anti-vaxxers
Don’t have sex with them. You have a risk of getting a whole slew of STDS and when an HIV vaccine becomes available you risk getting HIV. The risk of breakthrough infections is small, but not zero. When they say that the Jynneous vaccination is 88% effective, it means it is 12% not effective. That is one out of eight, but it is not zero.
Plus, even for non-STDs, as unvaccinated individuals, there is a risk of you getting something.
New outbreaks of mpox are still happening elsewhere.
Dallas County may not have gotten a new outbreak, but other areas have been impacted. There has been a new outbreak in Chicago.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4017827-chicago-mpox-outbreak-raises-alarm-over-summer-spread/
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/cdc-reports-mpox-outbreak-experts-185027982.html
There is also a big concern we might see outbreaks this summer.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-mpox-cases-summer-resurgence/
This is the result of the health of Gay men not being a serious priority with the Democratic Party and the Biden administration.
The current and likely future of mpox in Dallas and nationally.
We might have an outbreak in Dallas. If there is a plan to avoid it, I don’t know of it. Perhaps the Dallas Voice might report on it, but I doubt they will.
Neglect. It seems that there is no concerted plan to continually work against mpox infections nationally by the Biden administration. We are likely to face a future where 40 to 60 men get mpox in Dallas County each year, a painful and often disfiguring disease.
It has largely ceased to be an issue in the LGBTQ+ press. Using Google, to check, there has been no reporting on mpox in the last year as of 5/29/2023 in the Dallas Voice, and the single mention was how the late founder of Abounding Prosperity, was involved in getting mpox available. However, in terms of reporting on mpox itself, NOTHING.
When will the restriction on mpox vaccination will end? We don’t know. What will be done to end the mpox vaccine shortage? We don’t know. Will there be a serious attempt to provide vaccines outside the United State where mpox is endemic? We don’t know. What will be the plan to drive new mpox cases to zero? There likely is no plan.
The current LGBTQ+ establishment, including Stonewall Dem Clubs, really don’t care that much about mpox, Gay men’s health related to STDs, and likely are squeamish about it. As long as we expect the current LGBTQ+ establishment to act, our expectations will be in vain. We need a new direction and new organizations.
Other tropical diseases.
In my letter to U.S. Rep. Crockett, I discussed how mpox had been neglected as a serious issue by the Western world and how African scientists said it was changing and become and STD. She did not reply, as I said in this post earlier.
The thing is that mpox isn’t the only disease that might come to the Western world. There generally has been a neglect of tropical diseases. However, with modern transportation we should understand that any tropical disease might change its nature and suddenly become the next pandemic.
Or a tropical disease might just get into the Western world by some chance transmission without chaning its nature.
We have had Covid and we have had mpox in the last few years. We don’t have a serious program to pervent another pandemic.
The health of Gay men depends on tropical diseases being effectively dealt with. Had there been a program to share smallpox vaccines in the Congo it is very likely the whole mpox debacle in the Gay community never would have happened.
Final reflection
We need to have organizing outside of the social welfare agencies, the LGBTQ+ establishment, and not restrained by the Respectability Gays. The health of Gays depends on it.
