I’m a 29-year-old gay man living in New York City during the first major wave of monkeypox infections in the United States. As the CEO and co-founder of a health care startup, I am very connected to the world of public health — especially public health that impacts LGBTQ+ people.

So I assumed I could get vaccinated against monkeypox fairly easily. But it took me weeks to do that. It’s even more difficult for people in my community with less time and fewer resources. What can be done to fix this?

I stepped off the 4 train into a huge crowd of masked strangers at the Bedford Park Boulevard subway station in the Bronx. Old men, young men, trans people, able-bodied and disabled people: all of us were on our way to get vaccinated at the Bronx High School of Science.

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