Health experts talk COVID-19, monkeypox
JACKSON, Tenn. — The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health hosted a COVID-19 media briefing Tuesday to discuss the surge of COVID-19 across the country.
They shared how they are responding to the pandemic and information regarding emerging monkeypox outbreaks.
“We do seem to be at a national plateau in a surge driven by omicron subvariant B2-121, and it is good news that these numbers seem to have plateaued nationally. But the big point here is that it’s important to see how much work remains to be done,” said Tom Inglesby, with the Bloomberg School.
Inglesby says it’s good news that the northwest and midwest cases are declining, and that overall hospitalizations have risen modestly in this surge. But it’s not the case everywhere.
“Cases in the west and the south are still rising, hospitalizations nationally are still rising, and there are still about 265 deaths on average a day across the country from COVID,” Inglesby said.
Inglesby says COVID-19 continues to be around the eighth or ninth leading cause of death in the U.S. on a weekly basis.
“This means a large unvaccinated and or unboosted portion of our population remains quite vulnerable to serious COVID infection,” Inglesby said. “That’s in addition to people who are immunosuppressed, whose vaccination may not provide protection it provides to immunocompetent.”
Inglesby says the need for Congressional support to sustain the tools used to fight COVID-19 is imminent.
“Funding to develop new vaccines to cope with variants, to fund treatments, to fund testing infrastructure and international response all needs to come from Congress. The administration has sent a request to Congress for funding many months ago and Congress has not yet acted on that request,” Inglesby said.
Secondly, he says those with underlying health conditions or older individuals should get Paxlovid the moment they test positive for the virus to prevent hospitalization and or death.
Moving onto monkeypox, Inglesby says it is important for clinical committees to spread awareness of the disease and urge everyone to be on the lookout for viral rashes.
He says it’s important to be seen by a health care provider immediately to get evaluated.
“We know that monkeypox is typically spread in close person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets or through direct contact with skin lesions or from bodily fluids, such as on bedding or clothing,” Inglesby said.
Inglesby says it’s also important to know that there is an effective vaccine for pre and post-exposure to the virus.
Inglesby says one thing to take note of when it comes to both COVID-19 and monkeypox is that the country needs to do more to prepare for and try to prevent the impact of future epidemics.
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