The Left Coast of this great nation is often held up as a blueprint for progressive policy successes by its politicians, such as Democratic Party presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.
However, just how close to utopia are these progressive paradises? A look at the public health conditions show that the only “wealth” that seems to be readily spread through these regions is viral load.
Late last year, I reported that the Los Angeles area was battling a typhus epidemic.
Now, a Los Angeles City Hall official is one of the latest victims of typhus, and the disease continues to spread across Los Angeles County.
For months, LA County public health officials have said typhus is mainly hitting the homeless population.But Deputy City Attorney Liz Greenwood, a veteran prosecutor, tells NBC4 she was diagnosed with typhus in November, after experiencing high fevers and excruciating headaches.”It felt like somebody was driving railroad stakes through my eyes and out the back of my neck,” Greenwood told the I-Team. “Who gets typhus? It’s a medieval disease that’s caused by trash.”Greenwood believes she contracted typhus from fleas in her office at City Hall East. Fleas often live on rats, which congregate in the many heaps of trash that are visible across the city of LA, and are a breeding ground for typhus.
The California Department of Public Health reports a 55% increase in reported cases of typhus for 2018, with over 160 cases reported across the state.
A bit farther North, the blue bastion of San Francisco has a fun, new statistic about which it can boast.
San Francisco has more drug addicts than it has students enrolled in its public high schools, the city Health Department’s latest estimates conclude.There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools and illustrates the scope of the problem on the city’s streets.It’s also an increase of about 2,000 serious drug users since 2012, the last time a study was done….The problem is particularly visible in the Tenderloin, where police reported more than 600 arrests for drug dealing last year. And where 27 suspects were booked into County Jail for dealing drugs in the first 20 days of the new year.The out-in-the-open use of drugs on city sidewalks and at the Civic Center BART Station was a huge embarrassment for the city and triggered more police patrols and crackdowns in the past year. The BART station has been cleaned up, but the problem continues in the Tenderloin.
To be fair, who would really want to live in the Bay Area completely sober?
As the final item in our review of social justice citadels, let’s look at Washington state. A few weeks ago, I reported that the section of the state close to Portland, Oregon (an officially designated anti-vaccine hot spot) was experiencing a measles emergency.
Early last week, Washington Governor Jay Inslee Friday a state of emergency related to the measles outbreak.
State agencies will work with local health departments and emergency management teams to help respond to any needs, including epidemiology to verify suspected cases, technical assistance to educate the public on measles outbreaks and guidance on how to protect vulnerable populations, according to Tara Lee, spokeswoman for the governor.
As public health officials review the escalating number of measles outbreaks, some indicate that social media may be a contributing factor to the anti-vaccination movement that is leading to the spread of contagion.
Dawn Nolt, an assistant professor of pediatric diseases at Doernbecher children’s hospital in Portland, said that while measles is only rarely deadly, “it has high consequences” for the short-term health of its victims. She said measles is also highly contagious, and will spread to 90% of unvaccinated people who are exposed to a carrier of the disease.She has seen an increase in what practitioners call “vaccine hesitancy”, and she added: “I do wonder whether the advent of social media has empowered that anti-vaccine movement.”
Clearly, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington State show that social justice demands conflict with public health needs and common sense.
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