A spike in cases of herpes in Southern California is reportedly being linked this year’s Coachella festival.
According to HerpAlert, there’s been a 2,083% rise in cases of the STI in Indio, California since the festival’s first weekend.
While the norm is to see 12 daily cases of the infection, that number has reportedly risen to 250 cases per day in the wake of the two-weekend-long event.
TMZ reported that HerpAlert diagnosed 1,105 cases in Southern California – where most Coachella-goers reside – specifying that those regions include Indio, Palm Desert, Coachella Valley, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego.
HerpAlert was founded two years ago and operates by users uploading photos of their infections for a doctor to diagnose, before issuing a prescription to treat the virus.
Prior to this outbreak, the largest herpes case spike was seen during the 2018 Oscars weekend, which reportedly saw 60 daily cases.
