by Kevin Schofield

You may recall that in the summer of 2022 there was a global outbreak of mpox (originally called “monkeypox”). It spread rapidly across the United States, disproportionately impacting gay and bisexual men. At the time, many health experts expected it to follow the same pattern as COVID-19 (though not at the same scale): an initial outbreak that eventually started to subside, followed by further spikes as people let their guard down and stopped practicing good hygiene and other behaviors that help stem the spread of the disease. And then, last summer, mpox quietly fizzled out. This weekend’s read is an article penned by representatives of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the White House, and the Brown University School of Public Health explaining why that happened, and the lessons learned by the public health community that helped them control the mpox outbreak. Those lessons are a counterpoint to what happened with COVID-19, and the positive outcome gives us hope that we can learn from our past mistakes.