Joe Biden declared monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday, sparking fears of a return to COVID-like restrictions on the population.
As PJ Media’s Athena Thorne previously noted, “authoritarian politicians and bureaucrats are having a tough time giving up the dictatorial powers afforded them by the Great COVID Powergrab.” The new declaration is a potential opportunity for Democrats to undermine the integrity of the upcoming 2022 midterms, which are widely expected to see Democrats suffer a shellacking — as we saw happen in 2020.
Except that, at least for the moment, public health officials are taking a different approach. Despite the federal public health emergency declaration, officials have been hesitant to impose restrictions to combat the spread of monkeypox.
Why?
Well, unlike COVID, which is spread through airborne water droplets, monkeypox is mainly spread by men having sex with other men. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 97% of monkeypox patients contracted the disease through homosexual sex.
But, shh! We can’t say that.
“We continue to monitor Monkeypox virus (MPV) activity, while also recognizing the stigma surrounding the disease,” Umair A. Shah, Washington State’s Secretary of Health, said on Twitter. “MPV is a HUMAN disease. It is not singular to any one community. Anyone can get it. We will not tolerate misinformation, bias or hate surrounding this virus.”
As PJM’s Kevin Downey, Jr. noted recently, the same liberals who blasted Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill suddenly don’t want to “say gay” when comes to how monkeypox is spread. Neither do our public health officials. Why not? Because that would mean telling gay and bisexual men to abstain from sex to slow the spread of the disease.
Related: The Morning Briefing: Sorry Dems, You Can’t Monkeypox This Election
We can’t have that, can we? Public health is not as important as making sure the gay community isn’t inadvertently stigmatized. We can’t inconvenience the gay community by asking them to exercise a little self-control, right? Who cares if that means monkeypox continues to spread?
Yes, this is what health officials believe.
“For decades, the LGBTQ+ community has had their sex lives dissected, prescribed, and proscribed in myriad ways, mostly by heterosexual and cis people,” Patrick Gallahue, a spokesman for the New York City health department, told the Washington Post. “Our guidance and advice are grounded in science and history — including the scientific reviews of how poorly abstinence-only guidance has historically performed in preventing transmission of STIs — with this disgraceful legacy in mind.”
Meanwhile, those who dare “say gay” are being punished. Don Weiss, the director of surveillance for the NYC health department’s Bureau of Communicable Disease, got reassigned to a different department after calling out his department for ignoring the disease’s connection to the gay community.
“We seem paralyzed by the fear of stigmatizing this disease while we totally ignore the epidemiology. If we had an outbreak associated with bowling, would we not warn people to stop bowling?” Weiss said.
In 2020, when the COVID pandemic first hit, our public health officials told us we had to make a few sacrifices to ensure that hospitals wouldn’t get overcrowded. It was dubbed “15 Days To Slow The Spread,” and during that time businesses shut down, schools closed, and people mostly stayed home. When they ventured out into the world, they wore masks and practiced social distancing.
It lasted longer than 15 days. A lot longer.
While most places have returned to normal, some places are still holding on to those pandemic restrictions like a security blanket. Heck, last month, Dr. Fauci even said he thinks people should still be masking up indoors. But that’s okay, because even the cis heteros gotta do it, too.
