While the pandemic is not over and COVID transmission remains high in the area, there's another virus to be aware of: Monkeypox. Missouri recently confirmed two new cases.
While the two cases are not in the St. Louis area, the city's Health Director, Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, told KMOX's Maria Keena that anyone can contract Monkeypox through very close personal contact.
"There's mulitiple ways you can get this. Direct contact, oral fluids, respiratory droplets, and also through intimate sexual contact," she said. "It's really about that proximity and touching or transmission through those respiratory or oral fluids."
Like with other sexually transmitted infections, Hlatshwayo Davis recommends safe sex practices. She also says people can reduce their risk by washing their hands and avoiding contact with materials like bedding of someone who has the virus.
Symptoms of Monkeypox are similar to the flu -- fever, swollen lymph nodes, muscle and headaches, chills, exhaustion -- but one distinction is the rash.
Illinois has 19 cases of the virus, and worldwide there are over 35,000. But, Hlatshwayo Davis said, any claims that this is a pandemic within a pandemic are untrue.
"That has not been declared," she said. "There are very specific definitions for what a pandemic is. Are there a lot of concerning cases globally? Yes."