Arizona patient dies in emergency room from plague

www.nbcnews.com

A person in northern Arizona has died from a case of pneumonic plague, local health officials said.

The unidentified patient, from Coconino County, showed up to the Flagstaff Medical Center Emergency Department and died there the same day, Northern Arizona Healthcare said in a statement. It is unclear when the death occurred.

The hospital noted that "appropriate initial management" and "attempts to provide life-saving resuscitation" was performed, but "the patient did not recover."

Rapid diagnostic testing led to a presumptive diagnosis of Yersinia pestis.

29 comments

Just take vitamin-c and ivermectin.
/s
In case people didn't know, we usually have a handful of cases of the plague every year. This isn't news.
- If it's a handful then each one is at least moderately news worthy in normal times
  With the new brain worm onncharge of healthcare timea that we're in, I see this as a screaming emergency news
  
  The Bubonic plague is easily treated with a round of antibiotics. Very rarely does someone die. This person waited too long.
- Judging by these comments, people clearly didn't know.
This is certainly not a harbinger of any kind
- Between one and two thousand cases of the plague are reported globally every year. Being in Arizona, they may have gotten it from being in contact with black-tailed prairie dogs.
  
  Well thats good at least, another commenter mentioned this guy must have been sitting on it for weeks to die the same day he got admitted. We can breathe for a few more weeks.
- Plague is pretty easily treated with antibiotics if caught in time. The fact this dude died the same day as he went to the hospital, I’d wager he waited too long to seek medical treatment.
  
  Sadly an all too common habit in the states
- Me to MAGA
  
  "Hey MAGA, looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the riverrrrr!"
Stop playing with Prairie Dogs, people!!!! They may be friend shaped, but they carry they plague!
- Worth it
Ah fuck didn't have that on my 2025 card
- Same here but in hindsight it seems like an obvious oversight.
- cabininthewoods.jpg
Why didn't they seek help at the onset of the illness? They wait for the miraculous cure from modern medicine. Just like that old man that died from rabies.
- Pneumonic plague is a particularly aggressive form of the plague, where you basically need to be treated within the first 24 hours of showing symptoms in order to have much chance of surviving, and you can die in as little as a day and a half. Initial symptoms include fever, weakness, nausea and headaches, aka the same symptoms as probably >90% of the illnesses most of us contract, so I can see how it would be easy to underestimate the severity of it, until you start coughing up blood.
  Further, while I don't know this person's circumstances, in a country where there's no guarantee of either universal healthcare or paid sick time and protections for workers who call off work when ill, I can easily see how someone might say "Eh, it's just a cold, but I'll tough it out, because I can't afford to go to the doctor and/or miss work," when they notice some of the milder and less remarkable symptoms, then wake up the next day coughing up blood and already be screwed.
  
  There are accounts from the Black Death saying some person was fine in the morning and dead by sundown in the street after coughing up blood.
- FWIW, everyone dies from rabies once they contract it.
  edit: my bad, there's been ~10 survivors since 2016... out of the 59,000 infections per year, globally.

29 comments