The recent monkeypox outbreak caught the United States by surprise, forcing public health authorities to play catch-up and finally issue a road map, centered on scaling up testing and distributing effective vaccines to communities at the highest risk of infection, for confronting the outbreak. But the window of dealing with monkeypox is closing, according to some public health experts.

“We could have gotten control of this if we had been more aggressive up front,” former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said earlier this week. “I think the window for getting control of this and containing it probably has closed. If it hasn’t closed, it’s certainly starting to close.”