Hepatitis Outbreak In San Diego

Probably another benefit of importing diversity:

Health officials on July 28 confirmed three additional deaths in San Diego County’s ongoing hepatitis A outbreak, bringing the total number of deaths related to the outbreak, which began in November, to eight.

County health officials also increased the total case count to 275 infections, marking a 47-case uptick since July 12. Among those infected, 194 have been hospitalized. A majority of the cases — about 70 percent — have occurred among the county’s homeless population and people who use illicit drugs.

“We continue to stress that people who are at risk should get vaccinated… so far public health investigators have not identified any common food, drink or drug source as the contributing cause to this outbreak.”

Vaccines cull the virus for those mutants which lack the gene for the antigen the vaccine targets. If that specific motif is not necessary to the virus’ reproductive cycle then a strain of virus which is vaccine-resistant will, with enough time, emerge.

Notice the focus on the homeless drug users. Yes, the use of dirty needles and unsanitary conditions will aid the spread. But weakened hosts, malnourished and stressed, will allow the virus to amp up in numbers when it infects, and that will increase the likelihood of a resistant mutant popping up somewhere. Then let that hit the gay population in San Francisco, and watch out.

That may be a predictable part of the cycle. Introduce enough r, and that eventually-to-be-homeless cohort will increase in number on free resources until K reemerges, and they all become petri dishes filled with diseases, cooking up the next pandemic.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on these cases when they emerge, because you never know where any one may end up going.

Tell others about r/K Theory, because it is like a mind virus with no vaccine