PHILADELPHIA — As a thumping bass beat shook the floor, Gregory Pierce praised the good people and good vibes at Level Up, a Center City club.
The past two months, though, there's been another attraction. On a recent visit, the DJ interrupted a set for a public service announcement: In a lounge, upstairs from the bar where beams of primary colored light swept over people drinking and dancing, health workers were delivering vaccines for mpox, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recently renamed the virus long called monkeypox in an effort to reduce stigma associated with the name.
"I had been wanting to get it," said Pierce, 58, of Norristown.
