It is becoming more clear by the day that we did not learn a dang thing in the nearly three years since the coronavirus pandemic began. The major mistakes made in the early days of the spread of the virus in the US are being made AGAIN in the new outbreak of monkeypox.
1–Wasting time on things that are not important. Remember in the spring of 2020 when public health officials and the media became obsessed with what the new virus should be called? “Wuhan flu” was the first common name used for the bug–based on where the largest concentration of cases were found when it started getting attention worldwide. Then-President Trump fanned the flames of discourse by referring to it as the “China virus” and someone in his administration reportedly called it “Kung flu”. Then for weeks we were consumed by arguments over the name–which began laying the foundation for distrust of public health officials and outlets of actual important information.
Well last week, New York City Health Commissioner Ashwan Vasan (who oversees a department in a city that has already declared monkeypox a public health emergency) took time to write a letter to the World Health Organization demanding that it change the name of monkeypox. He (or someone in his department) also took time to post about his letter on several social media outlets. Vashan claims that calling it monkey pox is “potentially devastating and stigmatizing for already marginalized communities”–as if that is somehow worse than contracting an incredibly painful disease–and therefore deserving of more effort than actually preventing its spread.
2–Failing to identify and protect those most at risk. Remember when the major concern was that anyone that contracted coronavirus was at a high risk of death? It took several months before anyone would publicly declare that it was those in three categories of risk factors that actually faced an increase rate of mortality: the elderly, the obese, and those with pre-existing respiratory or immuno-deficiency conditions. The majority of the population faced relatively little risk for death if infected–and many of us likely were asymptomatic and would have had no idea that we were positive.
Well last month, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study by researchers at Brown University that found 95% of those diagnosed with monkeypox in Europe and the United States through June were men who had sex with other men. If you didn’t hear about that study, it’s likely because White House officials and those with the Centers for Disease Control have not mentioned it–and the only news article I could find for it online was posted by NBC News on the health page of their website–not the front page.
What was easy to find were dozens of articles from that same time period discussing the “language associated with the outbreak” and how efforts should be made NOT to single out a specific group or population as being at a higher risk for contracting the disease. Once again, the reason cited for that repeatedly is so no one is “stigmatized”. Which led to the next repeated mistake:
3–Allowing the spread of disinformation. Remember when the major social media platforms all appeared before Congressional committees and promised to stop users from posting wrong and misleading info on their sites? It led to the controversial warnings on tweets from then-President Trump a number of times, and thousands of other accounts being deactivated as continuous sources of coronavirus disinformation.
Well last week, #monkeypoxisairborne was trending for a day on Twitter. Unsubstantiated claims about cases contracted by those who had no direct physical contact with infected men who had sex with men were all over the place. A small screenshot purportedly from a CDC website that lists airborne contamination as a possible source of monkeypox infection was shared and re-shared. Those with almost no risk factors responded by claiming they were going to get vaccinated ASAP (which would create unnecessary demand for a limited quantity of vaccines that should be earmarked for those currently at highest risk), while others stated they were never leaving their house again.
4–Inconsistent application of public health policy. Remember during the lockdowns when people who weren’t allowed to attend church services in person turned on their TV’s to watch thousands of people gathering for Black Lives Matter protests? Those who were told singing hymns would spread coronavirus quickly got to see people yelling at each other and walking with linked armed and clasped hands. And public health officials, to a person, defended the protests saying that it was “important that those taking part be allowed to exercise their first amendment rights”. That was the moment when the majority of Americans decided that lockdowns were never going to happen again–no matter how bad the pandemic got.
Well last weekend, the city of San Francisco (where monkeypox has been declared a public health emergency) went ahead with the annual Up Your Alley festival–which is a “fetish fest” for those into bondage and domination. Health officials in the city defended the decision because it (again) would not “stigmatize” people who are at the highest risk for infection–and that they would be handing out pamphlets with information on how participants could “better protect themselves” against monkeypox. That had to be quite the punch in the gut for those San Franciscans not into bondage and domination that had every event they wanted to attend for the past two-plus years canceled by health officials “out of an abundance of caution”.
If we continue down this path–which we have been down before–we will look back almost three years from now as monkeypox (or whatever “non-stigmatizing” name was finally decided upon) is endemic in the US and wonder “how did we get here?”–when we have actually been on this trip before.
