The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) was activated on Tuesday to boost operational support to tackle the monkey pox epidemic. For reference, the EOC was activated for Covid-19 in January 2020, the same day that the first coronavirus case was detected in the US. “Activating the EOC is helping to further complement the ongoing work of CDC staff to respond to this outbreak,” said Scott Pauley, CDC Spokesman. “Clinicians and public health departments are already turning to the CDC to report and investigate cases of smallpox in monkeys,” he added. Currently, 300 CDC staff are working on smallpox with medical staff at local and state level, and the EOC is expected to step up these measures. As of Monday, the CDC had 306 cases of smallpox in 28 states, with the highest numbers in California and New York, respectively. There are currently 66 cases in California, 63 in New York and 45 in Illinois. In the other states, for the most part, less than 10 cases have been reported. Epidemiologist and health economist Dr. Eric Feigl-Digg noted on Tuesday that the expected number of smallpox cases in monkeys by August is 100,000 worldwide and urged the World Health Organization to take action. Earlier on Sunday, the WHO said that while the global rate of monkey pox was spreading, it was not yet raising alarms about a global emergency. On Monday, the White House announced that the government would provide nearly 300,000 doses of the vaccine, with an estimated 1.6 million doses available in the coming months.
