“A Hunger Games Contest”: How Unforced Errors Hobbled America’s Monkeypox Response

The first diagnosed case of monkeypox in the US, on May 18, did not seem like a major cause for alarm. Unlike the virus that causes COVID-19, monkeypox was not novel, not airborne, and rarely fatal. In fact, the US government already possessed a robust arsenal of tools that could be used to combat it. In 2003 the US government began developing a detailed response plan for smallpox, a far more lethal virus that belongs to the same family as monkeypox. The plan, which over two decades grew to fill 333 pages, offered a playbook for how to mount an… Read Full Article