CNN reports that the announcement came during a briefing with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Public health leaders along with some leaders of national LGBTQ organizations have been frustrated at the US government for their “lack of urgency” on the monkeypox outbreak. The limited supply of monkeypox vaccines in the US has caused people to wait hours in long lines that go for blocks.

Four leading AIDS activists from the 1980s and ‘90s have shared a similar sentiment. They recall the HIV strain that started the AIDS pandemic in the late 1970s where public health officials around the world were slow to combat AIDS in its onset. “It feels like déjà vu,” NBC quoted gay rights activist Peter Tatchell. “The lessons from the AIDS crisis and Covid have clearly not been learned.”

The US’s monkeypox public health emergency declaration follow the declarations of some states like California, Illinois, and New York last Tuesday, and the World Health Organization last week. San Francisco was the first major US city to declare a local health emergency last week, followed by New York City.

In terms of testing, the US’s monkeypox capacity is plentiful, but the demand is low. “This is really, really concerning. It’s like Covid PTSD,” CNN quoted Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, member of the California Department of Public Health’s Monkeypox Virus Scientific Advisory Committee.

Aside from vaccines, testing is crucial to control the virus outbreak.

In a report by NPR, Rebecca Hersher of NPR’s Science Desk explains how climate change makes extreme floods more frequent.

This explainer comes after Kentucky is hit by historic deadly floods, killing at least 37 people with hundreds still unaccounted for. The devastating floods displaced thousands of people, caused power outages, and destroyed homes.

In Las Vegas last week, people experienced flash floods after heavy rains overnight in the heart of monsoon season. Las Vegas has been drier than usual, which made soil become like concrete during heavy rainfall.

In the international scene, extreme typhoons and floods due to climate change are not new. In the Philippines, Super Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the country, most notably the Visayan islands, in November of 2013 as the strongest typhoon ever recorded affecting 14 million people with at least 6,352 fatalities.

“It was the most powerful quake I’ve felt and I thought the ground would open up,” ABC quoted Michael Brillantes, a safety officer of the Abra town of Lagangilang, near the epicenter.

The quake’s strength was initially 7.3 magnitude, but was lowered to 7.0 after further analysis, making it the third strongest earthquake in 2022 next to the 7.3-magnitude in Japan and the 7.2-magnitude in Peru.

The Philippines can be found along the Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean, where most of the world’s earthquakes happen. It also experiences around 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake killed almost 2,000 people in northern Philippines back in 1990.