After canceling the last 11 dates of their 2022 European summer trek due to health problems affecting various band members, Whitesnake has now canceled the entire 2022 North American leg of its Farewell Tour because frontman David Coverdale continues to battle ongoing respiratory issues.
Most of the dates on the veteran hard rockers’ upcoming trek were to have featured them opening for The Scorpions, while a few of the shows were headlining gigs. The tour had been plotted out from an August 17 concert in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, through an October 21 performance in Las Vegas.
“It is with profound disappointment and a heavy heart that I must announce that Whitesnake will no longer be able to join The Scorpions on their US and Canadian tour due to my continued treatment for a persistent upper respiratory infection that affects my ability to perform,” Coverdale explains in an official announcement. “This includes the cancellation of our own headlining shows as well.”
He adds, “While Whitesnake will no longer be on the tour, the Scorpions will be continuing on. We Wish Our Good Friends, The Scorpions Every Success!!! We Wish You Well.”
Coverdale also has posted a separate personal statement about the tour cancellation on Whitesnake’s socialmediasites.
“My sincere apologies to my incredible Whitesnake band members…I couldn’t wish for a more amazing, exciting, inspiring & thrilling band,” the 70-year-old singer writes. “Also our wonderful Whitesnake Crew of 2022…Our dear friends, The Scorpions…All the agents & promoters…& of course to YOU our truly awesome fans…I am deeply & profoundly sad to be unable to tour.”
Actress Anne Heche is in stable condition after she was involved in a fiery car crash on Friday that damaged a Los Angeles home, her representative has confirmed to ABC News.
The Los Angeles Police Department also confirmed Saturday that Heche, 53, was the driver in the solo-vehicle crash.
LAPD sources told ABC News they suspect that Heche was allegedly driving at an excessive speed when the crash happened.
Police are investigating whether drugs or alcohol could have been involved, which is standard in such a crash, sources said. The LAPD has been unable to speak with Heche in the hospital due to her condition, sources said.
“Anne is currently in stable condition,” her representative said in a statement to ABC News on Saturday. “Her family and friends ask for your thoughts and prayers and to respect her privacy during this difficult time.”
According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, a driver struck a two-story home in the Mar Vista neighborhood around noon Friday, “causing structural compromise and erupting in heavy fire.” They rescued a woman found in the car, who was transported to an area hospital in critical condition, the LAFD said.
Nearly 60 firefighters responded to extinguish the “stubborn flames within the heavily damaged structure,” the department said.
There were no passengers in the car and no other injuries were reported, the LAFD said. The department would not confirm if Heche was the driver, citing medical privacy laws.
DMV records and police sources confirmed that the vehicle involved in the crash and fire was registered to Heche. The LAPD’s West Traffic Division is investigating.
Authorities are also investigating an alleged misdemeanor hit-and-run incident before the fiery crash. Police told ABC News no arrests have been made at this time.
(NEW YORK) — Michigan state investigators said test samples taken Thursday from Hubbell Pond in Milford showed low-level presence of a toxic chemical that was released into the Huron River System by the Tribar Manufacturing company in Wixom last weekend.
Two crews from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy sampled waters upstream, downstream and within the pond on Friday to gather more information on the presence of hexavalent chromium, a known cancer-causing chemical.
According to Michigan authorities, hexavalent chromium is known carcinogen that can cause a number of adverse health effects through ingestion, skin contact or inhalation.
State officials are still investigating why the release occurred, the exact volume and product that was released and the timeline of events.
The Hubbell Pond samples were the only ones where hexavalent chromium was detected, out of the more than 30 samples that were taken from varying depths from near the point of release downstream to Barton Pond in Ann Arbor.
“Liquid containing 5% hexavalent chromium was discharged to the sanitary sewer system from Tribar Manufacturing in Wixom last weekend and routed to the Wixom wastewater treatment facility,” Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy said in a statement.
Michigan authorities advised people and pets to avoid contact with the Huron River water between North Wixom Road in Oakland County and Kensington Road in Livingston County. This includes Norton Creek downstream of the Wixom Wastewater Treatment Plant (Oakland County), Hubbell Pond (also known as Mill Pond in Oakland County) and Kent Lake (Oakland and Livingston counties).
Residents are also warned not to water their plants with river water or eat fish caught in that section of the river.
Authorities also warned this recommendation could be expanded to other areas of the river as it receives additional test results.
Properly constructed and permitted drinking water wells not influenced by surface water are unlikely to be contaminated by chromium from the river, they said.
Judith Durham, longtime lead singer of the Australian pop-folk group The Seekers, died on Friday, August 5, at age 79 after a lengthy illness.
According to a statement from Universal Music Australia and the Musicoast label, Durham died of “complications from a long-standing chronic lung disease,” and “passed away peacefully” Friday evening at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, after being admitted to palliative care earlier that day.
Formed in 1962, The Seekers were the first Australian pop group to enjoy major chart success in the U.S. and the U.K. The Seekers are best-known in the States for “Georgy Girl,” the title song of the 1966 comedy-drama film of the same name, which peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967.
The group also scored two top 20 U.S. hits in 1965 — “I’ll Never Find Another You” and “A World of Our Own,” which reached #4 and #19, respectively, on the Hot 100. In addition, The Seekers topped the U.K. singles chart in ’65 with “I’ll Never Find Another You” and “The Carnival Is Over.”
The Seekers disbanded in 1968 when Durham left the group to pursue a solo career, but they went on to reunite numerous times over the ensuing years. Most recently, The Seekers mounted a “Golden Jubilee Tour” celebrating their 50th anniversary that took place in 2013 and 2014.
Durham’s three Seekers bandmates — Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley and Athol Guy — issued a joint statement following Durham’s passing that reads, “Our lives are changed forever losing our treasured lifelong friend and shining star. Her struggle was intense and heroic — never complaining of her destiny and fully accepting its conclusion.”
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted a tribute to Durham on his Twitter feed, calling her a “national treasure and an Australian icon.”
(BUTLER TOWNSHIP, Ohio) — The FBI is involved in a multistate manhunt for a person of interest sought in the fatal shooting of four people in Ohio.
The person of interest, identified by police as 39-year-old Stephen Marlow, should be considered “armed and dangerous,” FBI Cincinnati said on Twitter. He has ties to Indianapolis, Chicago and Lexington, Kentucky, and “could be in one of these cities,” FBI Cincinnati said.
Marlow has ties to Indianapolis, Chicago and Lexington and could be in one of these cities. He should be considered armed and dangerous.https://t.co/OclLDzP0b4
Marlow is wanted in connection with the shooting deaths of four people in Butler Township, a small town north of Dayton on Friday, police said.
Police responding to reports of gunfire shortly before noon found the four victims suffering from gunshot wounds at “multiple crime scenes” in a residential area, the Butler Township Police Department said.
The four victims were pronounced dead at the scenes. They have not been identified by police.
Butler Township Police Chief John Porter said they don’t believe there is a continued threat to the neighborhood but “we will continue to have crews in the area in case Marlow would return,” he told reporters on Friday. The Dayton Police Department Bomb Squad was also contacted “out of an abundance of caution,” he said.
Neighbors were asked to review any video camera footage from that day.
Porter said police were working to determine “if there were any motive to this horrible tragedy” and did not have any further information on the investigation.
“This is the first violent crime in this neighborhood in recent memory,” Porter said.
Marlow is believed to have fled the area in a white 2007 Ford Edge SUV with the Ohio license plate JES9806, police said.
He was described by police as approximately 5’11”, 160 pounds with short brown hair and was last seen wearing shorts and a yellow T-shirt.
(BEIRUT, Lebanon) — An explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in Lebanon’s biggest seaport in 2020 has left deep trauma in the Lebanese psyche.
Opera singer Michel Bou Rjeilly says Beirut will never be the same.
“It was all gone,” he said. “The café shops, the boutiques, the little scribbles on the walls, the old men fighting over who cheated while playing cards … Smashed, dead and unrecognizable.”
Bou Rjeilly who was injured in the explosion, said he remembers the immediate aftermath with clarity. “All my things were scattered on the floor, my brother was in front of me trying to remove the glass from my hair and head, telling me not to worry and that we will fix the house together … outside people screaming, ambulances going off, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing,” he recalled.
Nearly 200 people were reported dead after the blasts on Aug. 4, 2020, and over 7,000 were injured. The blasts destroyed 77,000 apartments and displaced over 300,000 people, the United Nations said.
Four of the port’s silos collapsed on Thursday as a belated result of the blasts, two years to the day after the explosions. Beirut residents who had gathered near the port center for protests and in homage to victims watched their port once again engulfed in smoke on this national day of mourning.
On Wednesday, U.N. experts called on the Human Rights Council to launch an international investigation into the explosion, saying, “Victims must have justice and accountability.”
Yet two years after the blasts, no one has been arrested or faced consequences. “This tragedy marked one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in recent memory, yet the world has done nothing to find out why it happened,” U.N. experts said this week.
On the anniversary of the tragedy, some Beirut residents talk about it constantly, sharing where they were when it happened, and like Bou Rjeilly, sharing their survival stories.
Some of them say if the economic crisis had hit the Lebanese commercial area of Mar Mikhael; if COVID-19 restrictions had not drastically diminished the numbers on the streets that day. if children were still at school at the time of the explosion, perhaps the death toll would have been in the thousands rather than the hundreds.
The human toll is significant. My contact in Lebanon told me as I boarded the plane to head there to cover the explosion in September 2020 that I could call him anytime because he doesn’t “sleep since the blasts.”
Apparently, he is not alone in experiencing restless nights and anxiety since the blast. Local reports have also covered a shortage of antidepressants in Lebanon’s pharmacies — some believe due to the country’s financial crisis and the trauma from the explosions.
The explosions also led to an exacerbation of the food crisis in a country already hard-hit by a dire financial crisis. Lebanon imports up to 80% of its food and the blasts affected the country’s main entry point for food products, according to a local food bank.
Mona Keenan is vice president of the Lebanese Food Bank, a nongovernmental organization that distributed over 100,000 food boxes to people in need in the last year. More than 1.5 million people are currently suffering from food insecurity in Lebanon, she said.
“The food crisis since the explosions has doubled, tripled even, (so) the need is much more than before,” Keenan said. “The port was the main place where food came from.”
The blasts have become a symbol of the struggle of the Lebanese people. The shockwaves are still being felt, with nearly 80,000 people having fled the country in the last year alone, according to Sal, an independent consultancy firm based in Beirut.
During my September in Beirut, I spoke to those who were making plans to leave the country while claiming their love for Lebanon and pride in being from its capital.
A large number of Lebanese are fleeing country, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, so expatriation is far from a new phenomenon. What’s different this time, is that some told me they were not looking back once gone, and were planning on not returning.
(NEW YORK) — Flooding is possible on Saturday for large swaths of the country — including hard-hit eastern Kentucky — as millions of Americans are also under heat advisories.
Flash flooding is possible in the Ohio River Valley, as some parts may see 2 to 4 inches of rain.
Areas from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Pittsburgh, including nearly the entire state of West Virginia, have the greatest chances for flooding on Saturday, where slow-moving heavy downpours are expected.
That also includes eastern Kentucky, which was the site of devastating floods in late July. At least 37 people have been confirmed dead in the catastrophic flooding. Parts of the region were also hit with heavy rainfall on Friday. By midday Saturday, the heaviest rain had so far stayed clear of the worst-hit areas in last week’s flooding. The flash flood threat is expected to subside in this region on Sunday.
In the Upper Mississippi Valley, areas between Minneapolis and Dubuque, Iowa, may also see flooding rains on Saturday, with 3 to 5 inches possible.
Saturday storms are expected to cause flight disruptions from New York to Florida and parts of Texas, Denver and Washington state, the Federal Aviation Administration warned. That comes after severe weather Friday night forced airlines to cancel more than 1,200 flights.
Meanwhile, more than 70 million Americans are under heat alerts this weekend, with heat alerts issued from Oklahoma to Maine.
In the Northeast, heat advisories extend from Delaware to Maine. Temperatures will feel like the mid-upper 90s for much of the Northeast coast Saturday.
Excessive heat warnings are in effect for Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska, where the heat index is expected to surpass 110 degrees on Saturday.
Triple-digit temperatures are also forecast from Texas to Iowa.
The scorching temperatures are expected to persist in many of the same areas on Sunday.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Saturday after experiencing a rebound infection but will continue to isolate until he gets a second negative result, the White House physician said.
“The President today continues to feel very well,” Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a letter to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “Given his rebound positivity which we reported last Saturday, we have continued daily monitoring. This morning, his SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing was negative.”
“In an abundance of caution, the President will continue his strict isolation measures pending a second negative test as previously described,” O’Connor added.
Biden first tested positive for the virus on July 21, experiencing a slight fever, cough and sore throat among other mild symptoms. He isolated at the White House residence and completed a five-day course of Paxlovid, an antiviral treatment for those with mild to moderate symptoms who are considered a high risk for severe illness, before testing negative.
After emerging from isolation, he hailed the available COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.
“We’ve got through COVID with no fear — I got through it with no fear. A very mild discomfort because of these essential, lifesaving tools,” he said in a Rose Garden speech. “And guess what? I want to remind everybody: They are free. They are convenient. And they are safe, and they work.”
But on July 30, he tested positive again in what O’Connor called an example of “rebound positivity” from the Paxlovid treatment.
While uncommon, some patients who take Paxlovid can test positive again after finishing the treatment course but doctors emphasize that doesn’t mean the drug isn’t effective. High-risk patients who take the antiviral treatment still have a dramatically lower risk of being hospitalized due to the virus.
Biden said he was feeling well and made several virtual appearances during his second infection, addressing the nation from the Blue Room balcony about the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on Monday and touting a strong jobs report and movement on his agenda in the Senate on Friday.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden have plans to travel to Kentucky on Monday, the White House previously announced, in what would be his first trip since his diagnosis. If they do travel, they will join Gov. Andy Beshear and his wife Britainy Beshear in a meeting with families affected by the state’s devastating flooding. At least 37 people died in the flooding, which also left water and electricity systems heavily damaged.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate parliamentarian has signed off on key climate and health care provisions in the Democrats’ major spending bill.
The rulings from Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s non-partisan rule keeper, come before an expected vote Saturday afternoon to begin debate on the $739 billion climate, health care and tax package titled the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Democrats are using a fast-track process known as reconciliation to pass the bill through a simple majority vote. The Senate parliamentarian is responsible for issuing opinions on whether provisions meet conditions of the budget reconciliation rules.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the Senate Finance Committee’s clean energy tax package — a major portion of the bill — adhered to the chamber rules.
The Inflation Reduction Act sets out $369 billion for climate, much of which would go toward tax credits to prop up clean energy technologies. Consumer tax credits are included for Americans to make “home energy efficiency improvements” and for those who purchase electric vehicles.
It also provides a tax credit to clean energy developers who pay their workers the prevailing wage.
“I’m especially pleased that our prevailing wage provisions were approved,” Wyden said in a statement. “These provisions guarantee wage rates for clean energy projects. Clean energy jobs will be good-paying jobs.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also announced Saturday that the parliamentarian signed off on most of the drug pricing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act except for one prescription cost-reducing program Democrats wanted to include.
“Democrats have received extremely good news: for the first time, Medicare will finally be allowed to negotiate prescription drug prices, seniors will have free vaccines and their costs capped, and much more. This is a major victory for the American people,” Schumer said in a statement.
The legislation will allow the federal health secretary to directly negotiate the prices of certain expensive drugs for Medicare starting in 2026. It would also cap out-of-pocket costs for those who use Medicare drug plans at $2,000.
Democrats wanted to penalize drug companies for raising prices of some prescription drugs faster than inflation, in an effort to keep costs down. But, according to a source familiar, the parliamentarian ruled that these penalties cannot be applied on individuals with private health insurance. They’ll stay in affect for Medicare.
“While there was one unfortunate ruling in that the inflation rebate is more limited in scope, the overall program remains intact and we are one step closer to finally taking on Big Pharma and lowering Rx drug prices for millions of Americans,” Schumer said.
Schumer said earlier this week that the first vote on the spending bill is expected Saturday afternoon.
The motion to proceed, if passed, would begin debate on the bill and give lawmakers the opportunity to vote on amendments in what’s been dubbed “vote-a-rama.”
Republicans have pledged to bring up amendments on issues related to immigration, crime and energy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters on Friday that the voting session will be “hell.”
President Joe Biden on Friday praised the movement on the bill, stating Democrats were “on the cusp” of passing what he said was the “most important step” to combating inflation.
“In short, this bill is a game changer for working families and our economy,” he said. “I look forward to the Senate taking up this legislation and passing it as soon as possible.”
(NEW YORK) — In early May, when the first cases of monkeypox surfaced in the United Kingdom and Europe, health officials in the United States advised Americans not to panic.
There had been outbreaks of the rare disease before that had been controlled with testing and vaccines, and experts were optimistic an outbreak of monkeypox in the U.S. could be contained.
“We’re working hard to contain the cases that are happening so they don’t spread onward,” Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology division, said during a media briefing in May.
More than two months later, the situation appears to be much different.
As of Friday, there were more than 7,100 reported cases in the U.S. across 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, according to the CDC, resulting in the Department of Health and Human Services declaring the outbreak a public health emergency Thursday.
That stands in stark contrast to instances of the disease in the recent past — two travel-associated cases in 2021 and a small outbreak in 2003 linked to contact with pet prairie dogs, which were infected after being kept near small mammals from Ghana.
Currently, about 80,000 specimens per week are being tested and at least 600,000 vaccines have been distributed throughout the nation, health officials said during a media briefing Thursday.
While the federal government has acquired more than 1 million vaccine doses as part of the national stockpile preparedness program and has newly appointed monkeypox crisis coordinators, some public health experts interviewed by ABC News said the first cases in Europe back in May should have been a warning sign for the U.S. to ramp up testing and vaccination because of the possibility of community transmission.
Unlike COVID-19, monkeypox is more difficult to transmit, passing primarily through direct skin-to-skin contact. But there has been criticism leveled that it was a slow start and some mistakes made during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were repeated.
“Quite frankly, the inability of the government and inability of federal public health to respond sooner than it did is what cost us here,” Dr. Perry Halkitis, dean of Rutgers School of Public Health, told ABC News.
The White House said Thursday President Joe Biden is getting “regularly briefed on monkeypox” and it’s an issue that is “top of mind” for him.
Lack of alarm bells
The first case of the current outbreak was reported in the U.K. on May 7. Soon cases began to crop up in countries in mainland Europe, such as in Portugal and Spain.
The U.S. did not see a case of monkeypox confirmed until May 19 in a Massachusetts patient. With only one case, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health cautioned the risk to the public was low.
But like the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, some public health experts warned that cases were likely more widespread than was publicly known.
Halkitis said the U.S. should have immediately started assembling a task force and increasing the supply of tests and vaccines after the first monkeypox patient was confirmed in Europe, suggesting potential community transmission.
“When the disease first appeared, that should have rung alarm bells for people,” he said. “We know perfectly well from COVID how quickly things spread because of global travel. We should have been at that point acting immediately, putting task forces together, getting vaccines and we did not do that.”
“Now they’re going to put a task force together? It’s a little late,” Halkitis continued.
Testing criteria not broad enough
It was not until late June that the HHS announced it was expanding testing capacity and accessibility by shipping tests to five commercial laboratories nationwide.
Between mid-May and early June, U.S. laboratories had only tested a little more than 2,000 specimens from patients suspected to have monkeypox, a CDC report found.
However, testing has rapidly increased from 6,000 specimens per week in late June to more than 80,000 per week currently, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a media briefing Thursday.
“As testing has increased, our capacity for testing has increased and far outpaced the demand,” she said. “So right now, we’re really only testing at about 10% of the capacity we have, and we are encouraging anyone who has a prospective rash that could be monkeypox to present for testing.”
The CDC currently recommends that people be tested only if they think they have monkeypox — including the telltale sign of a rash — or have had close contact with someone who has monkeypox.
But Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said testing recommendations should be expanded to a few more groups because not all rashes look the same and some high-risk people may not know that they were even exposed.
“We should be testing much more than we’re testing now and I think we should loosen the criterion or guidance for who we should test,” he told ABC News. “I think we should flood the community with testing, just like in COVID.”
He also said because monkeypox does not always manifest as a rash on the skin — with sores sometimes appearing in the mouth, vagina or rectum — those at high-risk who don’t have a traditional rash should have swabs performed in those areas to test for monkeypox.
Delay in making vaccines available
In May, Biden called the level of exposure something “everybody should be concerned about” but that the country has vaccines and that it doesn’t rise to the level of concern of COVID.
So far, the U.S. secured 6.9 million doses for delivery by May 2023, according to the HHS, with 1.1 million made available to states for ordering.
Some experts say vaccines could have been distributed a lot more quickly. The U.S. government currently has a contract with Danish firm Bavarian Nordic to “finish and fill” Jynneos, a vaccine approved for both smallpox and monkeypox.
The bulk of the 1.1 million doses initially sat in a plant that needed to be inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a typical process for the agency.
Last month, the FDA said it had approved 786,000 doses to be released after it finished inspecting the plant and determined the vaccines being formulated there met its standards. The investigation only took about six weeks, much faster than typical for the FDA.
“Six weeks is pretty fast for that,” Dr. Gregory Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, told ABC News. “What the argument would be is that the three-year-shelf life is too short.”
As soon as vials are filled with the vaccine, a three-year ticking clock to expiration begins. Poland says the FDA may have held off on signing off to try to get the vaccine to as many people as possible before this occurred.
However, demand is far outpacing supply. About 600,000 doses have been delivered and there are 1.1 million people eligible to be vaccinated.
Currently, the U.S. only uses the Jynneos vaccine, not another smallpox vaccine called ACAM2000 — which the U.S. has in a stockpile — because the latter can cause side effects in people with certain conditions, such as those who are immunocompromised.
But Poland says the vaccine should be used and people can be screened to make sure they don’t have any conditions that put them at risk.
“I understand reluctance to use it but, especially if monkeypox really starts exploding, I don’t think you’ll have a choice at that point,” he said. “I think if your choice is we’ve got nothing or we’ve got this, that’s easy for me.”
To increase the number of doses available, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said during a media call on Thursday the agency has “identified a potential solution.”
“We’re considering an approach … that would allow health care providers to use an existing one-dose vial of the vaccine to administer a total of up to five separate doses,” he said.
The vaccine would be given in a smaller, shallower injection under the skin, a method Califf said would still be safe and effective but would allow up to five doses to be pulled from one vial.
Hesitation to declare a public health emergency
The HHS on Thursday declared monkeypox a public health emergency, 78 days after the first U.S. case was detected in May and about two weeks after the World Health Organization did the same.
It also comes two days after Biden named a national monkeypox team to help combat the outbreak and help increase the availability of tests, treatments and vaccines.
Larry Gostin, a former CDC and WHO consultant who has been advising the White House on monkeypox response, said the announcement could be a “turning point” in the nation’s health response after a “lackluster start.”
“It’s coming very, very late,” Gostin, also a professor of medicine at Georgetown University., told ABC News’ “Start Here.” “It’s not a time to panic, but it’s absolutely a time to get serious. And I hope that this will be a pivotal turning point for the administration after a lackluster start.”
By issuing a declaration, HHS will be able to take a series of actions including accessing funds set aside for such an emergency as well as appointing personnel to positions directly responding to the emergency. It will also help speed up test and vaccine distribution.
“One thing that’s been hampered from the beginning is money,” Chin-Hong said. “Money means personnel, it means even delivering medications to patients, it means diverting people away from other activities temporarily to try to focus on one outbreak instead of focusing on 10 million other things.”
Before the U.S. declared an emergency, New York, Illinois and California all declared their own emergencies. But without a national declaration, it meant states couldn’t access federal resources.
“California, Illinois and New York might be able to cobble stuff from their own state funds, but they can’t really use federal funds — unless it’s been like some puny money for random emergencies in the future — because there’s no dedicated monkeypox money from a federal level,” he said. “You know, a lot of the efforts in each of the parts of the country is hampered by money.”
As to why the U.S. took so long to declare a health emergency — HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra cited “evolving circumstances” for the declaration — experts say there are a few reasons.
One is to avoid further stigmatization of the LGBTQ community. So far, most cases in the U.S. have been reported among men who have sex with men, a group that includes people who identify as gay, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary.
Even though the CDC has said there is no evidence that monkeypox is a sexually transmitted infection and that anyone can contract the disease, Halkitis said health officials may have been worried about further discrimination of LGBTQ people.
“The other reason I think there’s a hesitation is because I think people are exhausted with COVID,” he said. “And the last thing people want to hear about is another public health emergency when we don’t even have the last one under control.”
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer, Cheyenne Haslett and Karen Travers contributed to this report.
