After news broke that the U.S. declared monkeypox to be a public health emergency, friends and family started asking me, an infectious disease epidemiologist, if monkeypox is about to begin causing widespread death and chaos. I assured them that the Aug. 4, 2022, public health emergency declaration is about government resource allocation. Similar to the World Health Organization’s declaration of monkeypox as a public health emergency of international concern, the U.S. declaration isn’t calling for individuals who are not in a high-risk group to change anything about their lives.
There have not yet been any monkeypox deaths in the U.S., but more than 7,000 cases have been diagnosed thus far, and the spread of the virus to nearly every state is concerning. While most cases are still occurring among men who have sex with men, the virus is transmitted through nonsexual skin-to-skin contact, so there is a risk of people in other population groups contracting the infection. The federal declaration is intended to help slow the spread of the virus among men who have sex with men and stop it from spreading to new communities.
