The monkeypox outbreak and Covid surge

Monkeypox cases in the U.S. tripled in July. We'll discuss the public health response, if it's enough and talk about the surge in Covid infections.

The World Health Organization has declared monkeypox a global public health emergency, with over 23,000 confirmed cases around the world. In the U.S., as infections tripled in the month of July, three governors have declared states of emergency and President Biden just appointed a monkeypox outbreak coordinator. But, as some public health experts have charged, is all of this coming a little too late?

This hour, we discuss the lessons we should have learned from the Covid-19 pandemic and our response to the monkeypox outbreak. We’ll also talk about the virus, the risk it poses and concerns about stigma in the LGBTQ community. And, we’ll talk about the latest on Covid as the Omicron subvariant BA.5, the most transmissible variant yet, continues to push infection rates up.

Dr. Perry Halkitis, Dean of Rutgers University School of Public Health. He’s a public health psychologist, infectious disease epidemiologist, applied statistician, and advocate and the author of Out in Time: The Public Lives of Gay Men from Stonewall to the Queer Generation. @DeanPNHalkitis

Dr. Jay Varma, Professor of population health sciences and the Director of the Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response at Weill Cornell Medicine. He spent 20 years working for the CDC on infectious diseases in Africa, Asia, and New York City, most recently leading the City’s COVID-19 response from April 2020-May 2021. @DrJayVarma