Monday, August 1, 2022

I have been somewhat concerned about Monkeypox the very beginning, but I am getting more and more concerned about it as time goes by. It clearly is spreading rapidly throughout the world the community of MSM with an estimated doubling time of about seven days; my concern is that we are all seeing some spray into the non-MSM communities such as the recent is very much bothering me is the continued plans to have MSM and gay pride galas at the same time that we are having acceleration of COVID as well as outbreaks of monkeypox (see above my conversation with Jen Ashton) I got my usual follow up call from Kevin O'Connor regarding the President's condition. He is concerned that his viral load is going in the wrong direction, namely, his CT value went from 18/16 to 16/14. He called me together with Walter Reed ID physician Wes Campbell to see if I agreed with them that they should not restart Paxlovid since the president does not have any new symptoms and his oxygen saturation is 98%. His chest is clear despite the fact that he has his typical nagging cough that antedated his illness. I agreed with them that they should not start a second course of Paxlovid. The administration will announce tomorrow that they are appointing a monkey pox Coordinator (Bob Fenton) and a Deputy Coordinator (Demetre Daskalakis). Clearly the response or at least the perception of the response of the government to monkeypox has not been good. They are hoping to reinvigorate the response by this appointment. Tonight, Kevin Munoz (WH Comms) called me and he asked me if it was OK to put a quote in the press release supporting this decision. The White House feels that because of my street credibility with the gay community that this would make the choice more acceptable. I agreed and provided a brief quote. Overwhelming evidence of benefit of vaccines and boosts: