On the corner of 4th Street and Broadway, Brian Sullivan and his husband spent Friday night at Precinct, a popular gay bar in Downtown Los Angeles. It was their first night out since news of the monkeypox virus broke in the queer community.
Drawn in by familiar strobe lights pulsing to the DJ’s ‘80s disco mix, Sullivan weaved through tipsy strangers and barely audible conversations to the dance floor. He spent the last few weekends, Sullivan said, trying to find monkeypox vaccines for him and his husband.
“The local government is nowhere to be seen,” Sullivan, a USC alum and 30-year resident of South Central L.A., said. “My husband and I finally got our vaccines through Redline, another gay bar on 6th.”
At Precinct, once you’ve paid the $9 cover fee, you can also receive the monkeypox vaccine, either by appointment or walk-in, with a side of gin and tonic and front-row seat to “Fat Slut,” the bar’s newest drag show.
In a grassroots campaign to expand monkeypox resources between South L.A. and DTLA, the L.A. queer community has transformed night clubs like Precinct into one of the ways residents can access their two-dose vaccinations against the virus.
“Once again, the gay community is coming together and being there for ourselves. Where are we going to get a vaccine? Precinct, Redline, [The] Abbey,” Sullivan said. “We’re looking after our own when the government is slow to respond.”
L.A. County currently has the highest number of monkeypox cases in the state, and it reported the country’s first monkeypox death back in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the county’s 2,364 total monkeypox cases reported as of Nov. 9, 96% are male residents and 76% are gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
“One of the first reasons I wanted to get the monkeypox vaccine was because I knew L.A. goes crazy. I knew there’s going to be parties and they’re going to [have] super close contact,” said Sachin Dubey, a junior majoring in public policy. “[If] it’s ‘fuck following the COVID protocols,’ then the monkeypox protocols are not going to be followed at all.”
Dubey received their first dose of the monkeypox vaccine in Chicago at the University of Illinois Chicago, where they worked a public sector job before coming back to USC.
Dubey’s search for a second dose of the vaccine, however, has been even more of a challenge now that they are back at USC. Unlike UIC, USC does not offer monkeypox testing or vaccinations for students or residents, with the exception of a USC School of Pharmacy clinic at Dodger Stadium in Elysian Park, according to the USC monkeypox information website.
The website refers students and staff to guidance about the virus from the CDC and LAC DPH, adding that “eligible residents can walk up to receive the monkeypox vaccine at [LAC DPH] vaccination points of dispensing (PODs)” in an August 26 update.
Dubey said UIC, a public university, may have had early access to the monkeypox vaccine due to its access to government funding, and that USC may not have had a similar opportunity yet.
“But, it’s also very strange to see how stringent they were about COVID [precautions] last fall and spring,” they said, “and it literally went from a 100 to zero. There’s no effort being put into monkeypox prevention.”
To reach more eligible queer residents, clinics with federal supplies of the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine are partnering with queer bars, nonprofits and event organizers. St. John’s Wells Child and Family Center, a South L.A.-based network of medical clinics, partnered with gay bar Redline DTLA to distribute hundreds of second-dose monkeypox vaccines, according to a Sept. 8 press release.
Simon Kilner, the bartender at Precinct, said he received the second dose of his…
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