The moves give New York City Mayor Eric Adams more leeway to fight the virus. The city is working with “every level of government” to get more doses of the monkeypox vaccine, slow the spread of the virus and keep New Yorkers safe. This comes after Governor Kathy Hotchul declared a “disaster emergency” in New York State in response to the monkeypox outbreak. “After reviewing the latest data regarding the monkeypox outbreak in New York State, I am declaring a State Disaster Emergency to enhance our aggressive ongoing efforts to address this outbreak,” Governor Hotchul said. “More than one in four cases of monkeypox in this country are in New York State, and we need to use every tool in our arsenal as we respond,” Hotchul said. “The vast majority of cases are spread through sexual contact, and the vast majority of cases (are) between men who have sex with men,” said Dr. Mary Bassett. “This is the community we both want to protect from stigma and raise the alarm.” Two people died in Spain and Brazil, the first deaths reported from this outbreak outside Africa. New York, the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States, is receiving 80,000 doses of the vaccine — but some say that’s not enough. “We’re calling for more and more vaccines to be made available in the city because we’re certainly at the center of that,” said New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan. “We account for more than 25% of cases in the country and so we need a vaccine supply commensurate with that level of impact.” The US has more than 4,600 total monkeypox cases, about a third of them in New York state. The Biden administration is also considering declaring monkeypox a public health emergency, following in the footsteps of the World Health Organization. ABOUT | LGBTQ Activists Call on Biden to Address Rapidly Rising Monkey Pox Cases ———-

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