Gov DeSantis will not declare Monkeypox State of Emergency, Nikki Fried sends letter

While governors from California (826 monkeypox cases), New York (1666 cases) and Illinois (547 cases) have all issued declarations of public health emergency due to the current monkeypox outbreak, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came out against what these states are doing and it appears he will not follow suit.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

“I am so sick of politicians, and we saw this with Covid, trying to sow fear into the population,” DeSantis said during a press conference near Orlando. “We’re not doing fear.”

“You see some of these states declaring states of emergency, they’re gonna abuse those emergency powers to restrict your freedom, I guarantee you that’s what’s gonna happen”.

After what we saw in the past two-plus years, DeSantis does make an argument. Not surprising Govs. Newsom, Hochul  and Pritzker jumped on board. Question is, where’s Gretchen Whitmer?

Remember, public health emergencies declared by states were a rarity prior to the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009.

In addition, the declared states of emergency revolve a lot around getting more funds for more vaccines. However, knowing what we know about the monkeypox transmission in non-endemic countries (like the US),  personal behavior is everything.

For the most part, people who aren’t involved in having multiple gay sexual partners are at essentially no risk. Maybe public health officials should focus more efforts on education–if you continue these sexual behaviors, your risk of monkeypox rises dramatically.. There is no reason why this outbreak can’t be stopped in it’s tracks.

Back to Florida–Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried sent a letter to Gov DeSantis calling on him to declare an emergency (525 cases as of today):

The letter follows the Commissioner’s request for additional vaccines from the federal government last week.

In addition, Commissioner Fried is calling on the Governor to enact a coordinated statewide response effort, including standing up additional testing, treatment, and vaccine sites and launching a public awareness campaign to better inform Floridians on the symptoms, causes, prevention measures, and treatments for monkeypox.

I am clearly for the highlighted portion above–that’s how you’ll put an end to this.

TAMPA BAY AREA REPORTS 37 MONKEYPOX CASES AS FLORIDA TALLY NEARS 500

 

 

 

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