Monkeypox Cases Increase By Over 25 Percent In New York: CDC

MID HUDSON VALLEY — Monkeypox cases have increased by over 25 percent in New York over the course of a few days, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Earlier this week, 1,390 cases were reported, but as of Thursday the state had 1,748 cases, reported the CDC.

This comes as the disease has spread from being within the men who have sex with men population and into the Hispanic population outside of New York City, according to data from the New York State Department of Health.

It was only going to be a period of time before the monkeypox disease would spread outside the MSM population, according to Open Door Family Medical Center and Foundation Chief Medical Officer Daren Wu.

"My staff has been reporting to me to their surprise and dismay that our MSM and Latino patients are not that aware of what monkeypox is," Wu said to Patch. "I'm not hearing the same level of concern when our staff reaches out to the African American or Caucausian populations."

Currently, HIV case managers and PrEP (Pre-exposure Prevention) navigators within the center are increasing their efforts to reach the LGBTQ+ population.

Wu believes that his Spanish speaking patients might be facing a health literacy barrier and time barrier.

"A lot of our patients are not only health illiterate, but also illiterate, and this is a more pervasive problem among our immigrant patients, especially the Latino population," said Wu. Many of his Hispanic patients work long hours at construction jobs, restaurants and domestic work, according to Wu. "They often work very long hours at jobs and in circumstances that make it difficult for them to take breaks, follow the news, look at their phones or turn on the radio or TV."

"I don't think they are working jobs where they have a lot of down time to consume media," said Wu. "Many of our undocumented population often work two or three jobs … I personally have many immigrant patients who finish one job, take a break for an hour or two, and then go on to their second job. They often do not have the luxury of time to relax and catch up on the news or surf the web."

Wu is pleased that President Joe Biden has declared monkeypox a national public health emergency.

"President Biden has called on us to explore every option on the table to combat the monkeypox outbreak and protect communities at risk," White House National Monkeypox Response Coordinator Robert Fenton said in a statement. "We are applying lessons learned from the battles we've fought – from COVID response to wildfires to measles, and will tackle this outbreak with the urgency this moment demands."

As of Thursday, there were 7,102 cases nationwide, reported the CDC.

"More resources will be devoted to it," said Wu. "The spread is ridiculous."

Despite that, Wu believes that monkeypox should have been declared a public health emergency two months ago, but with the continued prevalence of variants of Covid-19, he understands why public health officials had their attention elsewhere.

"Those of us on the frontlines are still working with Covid-19 as the main danger to our society. Covid-19 continues to kill 400 people a day across the country," said Wu. "And we have many other crises in evolution right now, stemming from the pandemic — we are behind on vaccine coverage for children, adolescents and children at risk. This means many preventable infections will occur, as a result of poor vaccination coverage.

People are also behind on cancer screenings (breast, cervical and colon), blood pressure management, diabetes, congestive heart management and kidney chronic disease management, which are all diseases that are largely preventable or manageable when resources are available, but that are very dangerous if left untreated, and responsible for most of the causes of death in this country,, according to Wu.

“There is such a scarcity in health care resources right now,” said Wu, who does not envy the position that many health officials have to make when deciding where to allocate resources. “At the same time … there is the great resignation phenomenon. The nation has lost several thousands of healthcare workers over the past 2 years, individuals who have decided to leave this sector to find other types of employment. We experience this everywhere in this country, including in this State and county."

To bolster the state's health care workforce, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that her office is investing $1.3 billion in funds so that health employers can claim them for their employees as a way to retain health workers who make less than $125,000. She also announced the nearly 1,000 Nurses For The Future Program scholarship winners.

The announcement comes less than a week after she made a Declaration of Emergency for monkeypox last Friday.

"The reason we declared a Declaration of Emergency, it allows us to respond more quickly," Hochul said Wednesday. "That means when we do have more of a supply of vaccines, which we are anxious to get our hands on. We can have more people allocate them other than just physicians. That allows us to have EMTs and pharmacists and others in the healthcare system, midwives, people who can help administer them. So when we get under a crunch situation, you want to have more people who are eligible to do this."

While applauding the Governor’s action, Wu says the great resignation among health care workers has less to do with pay and more to do with a lack of support when it comes to resources, workload and a lack of understanding by administrators on what frontline healthcare workers need to perform well in their jobs.

"If you think about it, why are so many doctors and nurses willing to step away from jobs, which by almost any measure are not underpaid? These individuals tend to be reasonably well-compensated, after all. Perhaps money isn’t the biggest determinant for many of these professional" said Wu. "Throwing more money at it may be less impactful than hoped."

Rather, the aforementioned issues for health care workers need to be addressed at a systemic level, said Wu.

"Of course compensation should always be a part of it," said Wu. "However, when physicians and nurses leave for other jobs, many times it's not because they feel underpaid. They feel underappreciated, under supported, or blamed for the inefficiencies of a system that is largely out of their control. That is important for most health care administrators to understand. The irony is that there are much more affordable investments than big pay raises that can be made that would go a long way. Such as understanding the work demands of healthcare workers and providing better support, adequate resources including the time to provide complex care in the safe and high quality manner all people deserve, but which often feels pressured, rushed, or with too many shortcuts as a result of time pressures. I think when health professionals leave, often they are saying “I am leaving because my workplace does not provide the staffing and support for me to do a good job.” To me that is the big disconnect that is driving people to leave the healthcare sector."