Your trusted source

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Monday in an effort to bolster the state’s response to the monkeypox outbreak, saying the measure will help with vaccinations, The Washington Post reported.

California, the most populous state in the United States, had recorded 827 monkeypox cases as of Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — second to New York, which recorded 1,390 cases and declared a public health emergency last week. The nationwide tally is more than 5,800.

The declaration allows emergency medical services workers to administer the monkeypox vaccine, as pharmacists had also recently been permitted to do, Newsom said in a statement. “It is critical to maximize the number of personnel who can administer vaccines within this outreach effort,” he wrote in the emergency declaration. “Expanding the pool of eligible vaccinators will substantially aid current efforts and support anticipated further vaccination efforts upon receipt of additional doses from the federal government.”

With a “limited supply” of vaccines from the federal government, California is distributing vaccines to local health authorities “based on a formula that considers [the area’s] current monkeypox cases and number of high-risk individuals,” according to the declaration. California has received more than 61,000 doses of the vaccine, according to Newsom’s office.