San Francisco will end its public health emergency over MPX, formerly known as monkeypox, on Oct. 31.
The public health emergency began in late July and was the first of its kind in the nation. But today, fewer than one new case of the virus is recorded each day.
“The public health emergency declaration on MPX, the first of its kind in the nation, served its purpose to reflect the immediate urgency of the MPX threat to the health of those most affected in the gay, bisexual and trans communities,” reads a city press release. “It also gave public health officials tools, such as collection of critical data, needed to respond effectively.”
At the start of its spread, the city struggled to get enough vaccines to immunize high-risk San Franciscans. But today, the shots are widely available and around 27,000 residents are now vaccinated against MPX.
Vaccines and tests will still be available to San Franciscans, and the public health department wrote that it will continue to monitor the disease.
As the city’s is set to expire, California’s MPX state of emergency remains in effect.
That’s in contrast to the Covid state of emergency, which the state is moving to end early next year. San Francisco has yet to announce its local end date for the Covid emergency.
Mayor London Breed appeared before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to say that her office and the city attorney’s are working to wind down the local emergency while retaining relief funds that have plugged holes in the city budget for the last two years.
“While the virus is with us still, the emergency has faded,” Breed said.