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Cal Poly warns campus community, student diagnosed with chickenpox

March 6, 2019

A Cal Poly student has been diagnosed with chickenpox, university officials announced in a message to the campus community on Tuesday that stressed the serious nature of the illness. [Cal Coast Times]

Health officials have confirmed the diagnosis, the message said. In an attempt to reduce the risk of exposure to others, university officials working with the student to identify the areas on campus the individual visited.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), chickenpox is a highly contagious disease that affects adults, as well as children, and spreads through close contact. A person who contracts chickenpox is contagious from one to two days before the onset of an itchy, blister-like rash until all lesions have scabbed. It takes about 10 to 21 days following exposure for a person to develop chickenpox.

In addition to the rash, which first appears on the chest, back and face before spreading all over the body, chickenpox symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue and loss of appetite. Those symptoms may develop one to two days before the rash.

Health officials suggest vaccination to prevent chickenpox. Every year, more than 3.5 million cases of the disease, 9,000 hospitalizations and 100 deaths are prevented by chickenpox vaccination in the United States, according to the CDC.

Individuals who show signs or symptoms of the disease should seek medical help immediately. Likewise, health officials recommend minimizing scratching to prevent the virus from spreading and minimizing exposure to others by staying home until lesions scab over.


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NO big deal about this at all… EVERYONE got chickenpox 25 years ago as a routine childhood illness…why is the University sending out this fear-o-gram?


2

OMG….The mortality rate of chickenpox is 0.0014% in adults. Added with the 20 times lower mortality rate for children who get the disease, it all boils down to 100 deaths per year, nearly all of them in immune-compromised adults. And that’s from roughly 4 million cases of chicken pox per year world-wide, according to official government experts at the CDC.


In the USA, there are less than 20,000 cases per year and 2 people die per year from Chicken Pox in the USA.


2 deaths per year folks. I’m scared to death…..which would make 3 deaths per year from chicken pox if I actually died from fright.


Now that this horror has us all huddling at home in fear let’s hope and pray that this poor man doesn’t drive in a car to get medical care. Why do I say such a thing? Because vehicle mortality rates in the USA are about 11.4 people dead per 100,00 drivers.


This means that riding in a car to see the doctor is 4.5x more dangerous than getting the chicken pox as an adult.


We need to vaccinate everyone and ban automobiles.


BTW, my statistics are good, but my logic is sarcastic. I’m sure not everyone will understand….but that’s OK.


The important thing is to feel afraid.


11

You know, there’s a vaccine for that now…


7

there’s a vaccine for irrational fear and poor ability to understand statistics and game theory? I’m interested. I just wonder what the side-effects for such a vaccine might be……


8

A vaccine for irrational fear of vaccines? I am all for it DocT. Or should I say Jenny Mc Carthy?


I bet next you will argue that Polio built character for those who were afflicted.


What is the savings to the USA from not having 3.5 million sick each year as was the case prior to 1995? Any stats on the ill effects to the population from the vaccine? You live for stats. Compare the two and you may be close to a reasonable analysis.


Sarcasm must be contagious. Got a vaccine Doc?


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If we’re being honest here, Polio was not all bad, the companies that made Iron Lung Machines did a pretty good business…


-7

MrYan


A vaccine for irrational fear of vaccines? I am all for it DocT. Or should I say Jenny Mc Carthy?


I bet next you will argue that Polio built character for those who were afflicted.


What is the savings to the USA from not having 3.5 million sick each year as was the case prior to 1995? Any stats on the ill effects to the population from the vaccine? You live for stats. Compare the two and you may be close to a reasonable analysis.


Sarcasm must be contagious. Got a vaccine Doc?


It’s not irrational to fear vaccines. The question is how much fear is rational?


I had chickenpox when I was a kid. I’m fine. Most adults who get chicken pox recover from it too. The vast majority. Most adults who get the vaccine recover from it too…..the vast majority. But the vaccine kills too. So, I’d say the amount of fear that is “rational” is about equal on both sides, going by the statistics.


But the real problem in your position is the lack of “rational” fear of automobiles. What is the cost of having tens of thousands of people die each year in auto accidents? More people die in the car on the way to their vaccinations than by the diseases they are vaccinating from!


Why not save lives and money and ban automobiles? Why not? Because that is IRRATIONAL FEAR. The same kind of irrational fear that makes us worry that one Cal Poly student is going to miss class for a week due to Chicken Pox.


Also, if you’re vaccinated, you have nothing to fear, right?


This is fear mongering for an expressed agenda. Nothing more, nothing less. If “saving lives” was really important we’d outlaw cars, guns, knives, wars, most of the packaged food we eat, etc.


What about alcohol? I’ll wager there’s an order of magnitude or two MORE deaths at Cal Poly—not to mention injuries and other unintended consequences—-from alcohol than from Chicken Pox.


And let’s not leave out drugs, like opiates, which kill far more people every year than all the childhood diseases combined!


But these are legal. Why? How?


This is about the state demanding to inject everyone with whatever they wish.


3

Apple meet orange.


You’re logic (?) is arresting. Nothing can be improved because you can identify another unrelated, larger, ill to worry about.


In your world; why try to cure cancer when there’s global warming to worry about? I get it. Do nothing, complain about everything.


I got Chicken Pox too as a young adult. Which now means I am much more likely to get Shingles (which is essentially internal Chicken Pox). Shingles can be deadly, extremely painful, and certainly expensive to treat. So you’re not out of the woods Doc.


I hope your anecdotal evidence holds over time. I have my doubts.


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