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Medicine United States

California Reports First Human Plague Case In 5 Years (livescience.com) 99

Posted by BeauHD from the 2020-isn't-over-yet dept.
A California resident has tested positive for plague, marking the state's first human case of the disease in five years, according to health officials. Live Science reports: The case was confirmed on Monday in a resident of South Lake Tahoe, according to a statement from the El Dorado County Department of Health and Human Services. The individual is described as an "avid walker" who may have been bitten by an infected flea while walking their dog in the Tahoe Keys area or along the "Truckee River Corridor" north of Highway 50, the statement said.

"Plague is naturally present in many parts of California, including higher elevation areas of El Dorado County," Dr. Nancy Williams, the El Dorado County public health officer, said in the statement. "It's important that individuals take precautions for themselves and their pets when outdoors, especially while walking, hiking and/or camping in areas where wild rodents are present. Human cases of plague are extremely rare but can be very serious." The patient is currently recovering at home under the care of medical professionals, the statement said.
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California Reports First Human Plague Case In 5 Years More

California Reports First Human Plague Case In 5 Years

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  • Remind me again... (Score:5, Funny)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @06:14AM (#60417773)
    Does POTUS appoint the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, or is that an elected position?

  • 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @06:17AM (#60417775)

    I am wondering what the Mayan calendar has to say about 2020?

      I know there was a kerfuffle about 2012, but WTF, 2020 has been a whole lot of disaster so far, and I'm guessing it's only going to get worse.

    • I am wondering what the Mayan calendar has to say about 2020?

      I know there was a kerfuffle about 2012, but WTF, 2020 has been a whole lot of disaster so far, and I'm guessing it's only going to get worse.

      Well, according to the Mandela effect, we forked off the original Earth code somewhere around 2012. Don't worry though. I heard there was a Learn to Code camp given a few years back, so 2020 Earth code should be at least that good.

      (Yeah, I know. Tends to explain a lot, doesn't it...)

      • Next year will be officially renamed to 2020 2.0.

        • Next year will be officially renamed to 2020 2.0.

          Perhaps 2021 should be known as "Mulligan". Seems to fit rather well.

          "A mulligan is a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck..."

    • "2012" was a typo on the calendar...

    • Re:2020 (Score:4, Funny)

      by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @08:17AM (#60417921)
      According to Nostradamus, something bad had to happen between 1950 and 2050, here we are.

      • According to Nostradamus, something bad had to happen between 1950 and 2050, here we are.

        Bah... something bad happens every day, so that prediction isn't much to talk about.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      A common joke that I read on the internet is that there was just an error and the last digits got switched. The real date they were talking about was 2021.

    • Last week saw Israel sign a peace treaty with an Arab nation. So maybe 2020 really was the apocalypse, and the apocalypse has already ended.

      • Re:2020 (Score:4, Funny)

        by gtall ( 79522 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @09:35AM (#60418113)

        Nah, the Apocalypse hasn't ended until the Rapture has happened. Mike Pompeo has his bags already packed. So did Jerry Falwell, Jr. until he posted those pics of his pants unzipped on Instagram. The Rapture is supposed to be when the Christian faithful meet Jesus upon his return to Earth.

        My own personal belief is that this is not how it will happen. On a nice sunny day, the trumpets will blare, the clouds will billow and roil, and Jesus will float majestically down from Heaven. He needn't have floated majestically but he'll do it anyhow. Jesus lands and goes about on a meet and greet..."Hi Y'all, Jesus here, glad to meet ya." Angels will follow..."That was Jesus and he was glad to meet ya." Then Jesus will look at his watch (funny thing about Heaven, you cannot tell time there without a watch), gets nervous and announces that while it's been real, time's a'wasting and he really needs to get on with his Christ duties. The clouds billow and roil, the trumpets blare, and Jesus floats majestically back up to Heaven. He wouldn''t need have floated majestically but he'll do it anyway.

        My apologies to Douglas Adams and the writers to Animal House for lifting and perverting a bit of their material.

        • Ok, everyone line up for the rapture. Please arrange yourself by how important you are, the most important person stand here, then the next most important, and so on. Please, no shoving, let's keep this nice and orderly. You there, no slapping either! Ok, looking good everyone. Now the golden chariots will come down to pick you up. We'll be starting at the back of the line... What do you mean how long will this take? You can always take these exit stairs down if you like.

        • Since it's 2020, after Jesus left, another guy showed in billowing smoke and went along on a meet and greet: "Please to meet you, hope you guessed my name."

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by b3e3 ( 6069888 )
        Israel has also been bombing fuel, food, and power distribution sites in Gaza for a week straight.

    • The issue is there are too many people not willing to listen to the experts, and mistrust their points.

      Anti-Vaxer, Creationist, Anti-GMO, Flat Earthers, Those who think Wi-Fi and 5G causes cancer, Climate Change deniers....
      This isn't from political preference, it is a general trend of not listening to the experts. The political bias seems to come into play on what stupid idea they disbelieve. Liberals tend to no believe experts when they say something is Safe, Conservatives tend to not believe experts when

      • Experts? Flat Earthers are experts in Flat Earth Theory, " and have strong insight onto the area. Compared to everyone else who isn't an expert in that field, which may just have a passing knowledge of the topic, and never did the full research on the issue."

        Experts can be wrong.

    • The calendar carver was dyslexic. It really ends 2021.

    • Damn it 2020, just drop the asteroid already!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Maybe Mayans miscalculated it.

  • Just a penicillin shot in the butt and presto. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

    • Providing you get competent help fast enough. Even then mortality rate is of order of 10% (without - well over 60%) - and in worst cases the time between infection and death is 8 hours (usually a couple days though.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        There's probably no pathogen that will kill you within eight hours of *infection*.

        Plague takes several forms, depending on the tissue infected -- bubonic (lymph nodes), pneumonic (lung), and septicemic (blood infection). In the septicemic form you get bleeding, both internally and from the orifices, gangrene in the extremities, and widespread clotting.

        Death can follow within hours of the appearance of *these particular symptoms*, but that's probably one to two weeks after the actual infection.

        • The news release doesn't mention which type of plague, but given that they are blaming an insect bite it seems likely to be bubonic plague. That's got a much lower death rate than the other two.

        • There's probably no pathogen that will kill you within eight hours of *infection*.

          True, but plague *can* kill you within hours of the first symptoms appearing.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by aitikin ( 909209 )
            GP acknowledged that fact:

            Death can follow within hours of the appearance of *these particular symptoms*, but that's probably one to two weeks after the actual infection.

  • And why not, we are just parasites.

  • Don't Forget - You're Here Forever (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @07:43AM (#60417891) Homepage

    "As punishment for your desertion, it's company policy to give you THE PLAGUE."

    "Uh, sir, that's the 'plaque.' "

    • I bought some flossers at the Grocery Outlet. They "remove[s] food and plague"

      Maybe they can help this guy

  • It's endemic to the squirrels in California (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GlobalEcho ( 26240 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @08:43AM (#60417989)

    There's a pretty good nonfiction book about the arrival of bubonic plague in California -- Black Death At The Golden Gate. Basically, the plague came into SF, and became endemic for a while mainly in Chinatown where the cultural impedance mismatches made it hard for eradication efforts to work. Some states imposed quarantines on Californians or closed borders.

    A great scientist, who was also kind of racist, came in to try to solve the problem and failed completely. Then another guy, not so good at science but very good with people, came in and got everybody working together.

    By putting bounties on rats, they got rid of the plague in the city. Unfortunately, by the time they did so plague had made it to the wild squirrel population across the bay. Every once in a while, somebody will handle a dead squirrel and come down with a case of the plague.

    (One of the reasons the plague never went too crazy in California is that the flea species Californian rats suffer from bite in a less disease-friendly way)

    • Re:It's endemic to the squirrels in California (Score:4, Informative)

      by Temkin ( 112574 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @08:50AM (#60418003)

      It used to circulate in the squirrel population with a 5 - 7 year cycle when I was a kid, and it used to hit the borrowing ground squirrels pretty bad. The feral hogs wiped out most of the ground squirrels, and now you only hear about it when the oddball Sierra hiker manages to catch it.
         

    • Prairie dogs are loaded with it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by piojo ( 995934 )

      the cultural impedance mismatches made it hard for eradication efforts to work.

      I'll be damned if that's not the nerdiest metaphor I've ever seen in my life. Don't get me wrong, I love it--but I bet normal people just elide the "impedance" and read "cultural mismatches".

  • Plague is endemic in the US (Score:3)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @08:56AM (#60418017) Journal

    Well, in Southwest, anyway. Very common in those cute prairie dogs. Fortunately it's easily treatable if caught early.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      Correct. All these folks who are attributing this to another sign of Armageddon or something are missing three main points:

      1.) This is the first case of the plague in California within the last five years, not since the Black Death.
      2.) The U.S. as a whole sees a few cases of plague in humans every year. (As in, you can usually count the number on your fingers.)
      3.) We know how to treat it. This isn't the Middle Ages.

  • A New Mexico man has died from the state's second reported case of plague this year [cnn.com]

    A New Mexico man has died of septicemic plague, marking the second plague case in the state this year.

    The Rio Arriba County man was in his 20s and was hospitalized before he died, the New Mexico Department of Health Friday said in a news release.

    Plague activity in New Mexico is usually highest during the summer months, so it is especially important now to take precautions to avoid rodents and their fleas which can expose you to plague," said Department of Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel.

    In recent decades, an average of seven cases of human plague have been reported each year in the United States, with a range of 1 to 17 cases per year, the CDC reports.

    Prairie Dogs in New Mexico carry the plague. I've been to places where they have signs posted warning you of it, written in big scary letters. I also have some prairie dogs living just down the street, in the middle of a residential area.

  • The rest of the country has considered California and Californians a plague for decades.

    • You're just jealous because they have the fifth largest economy in the world and their women are more beautiful than yours.

      • Their economy is a disaster.
        Their power infrastructure is worse, and woke government is incapable of accepting how to fix it.
        Homeless people fill public spaces, and Los Angeles city hall has a regular service coming around to clear the piles of human waste from the building's basement window wells.
        People are leaving the state in droves.

        Yes, much to be "envious" of.

        India has a huge economy (coincidentally the ACTUALLY 5th-largest), it's still a total shithole complete with smell of feces in every city...you

        • Their economy is a disaster.

          Covid aside, we've been operating in the black. Tell us again how that's a disaster. There are plenty of states that can only wish they could accomplish that.

          Their power infrastructure is worse, and woke government is incapable of accepting how to fix it.

          If our government was really "woke" it would destroy PG&E and take over their infrastructure. It's refusal to behave in a truly socialist fashion that is the problem here. California's government is as capitalistic as the next.

          Homeless people fill public spaces, and Los Angeles city hall has a regular service coming around to clear the piles of human waste from the building's basement window wells.

          Well, stop sending us your homeless. Take care of them in your own shithole states.

          People are leaving the state in droves.

          And if they're really unlucky, they'll w

          • Well, stop sending us your homeless. Take care of them in your own shithole states.

            Californians who believe the myth that their homeless are coming in significant numbers from somewhere else are just making a bad situation worse.

            • Californians who believe the myth that their homeless are coming in significant numbers from somewhere else are just making a bad situation worse.

              16% of Los Angeles' homeless admit to coming from out of state recently. That's both significant and also almost certainly understates the case, what of those who have been homeless for a long time?

              • 16% of Los Angeles' homeless admit to coming from out of state recently.

                Not according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority [lahsa.org]. They say 10% of their homeless came from out of state within the last year, not 16%. Where do your numbers come from?

                San Francisco also gathers this data. [sfgov.org] They say 8% of their homeless came from out of state within the last year.

                You said "Well, stop sending us your homeless. Take care of them in your own shithole states." Thing is, a homeless person saying "I came here from another state" is nowhere near the same thing as a homeless pers

      • I've lived in California. The beautiful women there are mostly imports, fools who go there for a Hollywood career.

  • My first thought on reading this was that some California Hipster was unimpressed with Covid-19 and wanted to go old school with his infectious disease.

    END COMMUNICATION

  • "Plague is naturally present in many parts of California..."

    The highways alone are a plague on mankind.

  • Avoid like the plague.

  • Of course, I assume without RTFA, that they mean the Y. pestis bacterium, but when you think about it, SARS-CoV-2 has pretty much all the features needed to call it a plague: it spreads rapidly, infects easily, when it does kill it does so in a pretty gruesome way, and leaves behind lots of damage in those it doesn't kill.

    Maybe it's time "plague" came to mean this virus instead of Y. pestis.

  • in areas where wild rodents are present.

    Where in the country are wild rodents not present? Where in any country?

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