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San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

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Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#51

Post by andirk »

Banthum wrote: post #46
dqpb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Obviously, poverty will always exist in some form" It's not obvious to me why that should be true. What is your logic?

There are some people who, if they are free (as in not institutionalized), will waste, misuse, or destroy any amount or kind of help given to them. Mostly such people have mental illnesses. (No, I'm not saying it's their fault or that they deserve to suffer. Just making a positive, not normative statement.)

I agree that there is a portion of our society who are mentally ill and expected to achieve a level of success in our society by themselves somehow. We seem to understand that children should not have to fend for themselves because they are not mentally equipped, but many mentally ill people have the mind of a child yet still expected to act above their ability.

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#52

Post by Gustomaximus »

mnm1 wrote: post #38

There's a Hepatitis A vaccine and it's readily available, yet trying to get a doctor to give you one requires a lot of conning and manipulation. Why is this? They say this is a disease only found in other countries, so if you tell your doctor you travel a lot, they'll finally give in and give it to you. How about giving the vaccine as a default? Clearly, San Diego is not in another country. This should be a standard…

Wow. In Australia, Norway and England theyll give you A/B vaccines easily on request. I find it hard to believe they wouldnt do tbis everywhere bar a few exceptional circumstances.

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#54

Post by tallanvor »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #53
Animats wrote: post #49

There's a good vaccine for Hepatitis A. And another one for Hepatitis B. Get inoculated.

And remember Hep B is 2 shots several months apart.

4 shots. The first 3 given in one month intervals, and the 4th a year later.

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#55

Post by tallanvor »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #52
mnm1 wrote: post #38

There's a Hepatitis A vaccine and it's readily available, yet trying to get a doctor to give you one requires a lot of conning and manipulation. Why is this? They say this is a disease only found in other countries, so if you tell your doctor you travel a lot, they'll finally give in and give it to you. How about giving the vaccine as a default? Clearly, San Diego is not in another country. This should be a standard…

Wow. In Australia, Norway and England theyll give you A/B vaccines easily on request. I find it hard to believe they wouldnt do tbis everywhere bar a few exceptional circumstances.

I wouldn't be surprised if you get some resistance towards the Hep B vaccine unless the doctor knows you're in what is considered a high-risk group. The reason for this is that the vaccination requires a total of 4 shots - the first three are given in one month intervals, and then a final one a year after the 3rd. Because of this, there's a high rate of people not following through and getting all the required shots.

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#56

Post by marvin »

lend000 wrote: post #40
curun1r wrote: post #3

It's way past time that we start dealing with homelessness as the national problem it is rather than leaving it to cities who are ill-equipped to deal with it. Cities like San Diego only have homelessness problems because they have weather that's amenable to living outdoors. The vast majority of their homeless population was born elsewhere. It's unconscionable that we leave the job of providing services for these peo…

Taboo question: What is an acceptable homeless population? What is your reference point? Obviously, poverty will always exist in some form, but how much can we realistically improve it?

Norway has practically zero homelessness, since everyone who are incapable of providing for themselves are paid a living wage by the state (and are also provided free housing).

There are probably a few people who fall between the cracks in the system, e.g. illegal immigrants who are on the run from the authorities or people who are mentally ill and actively resist medical care or help from the government. But there are practically zero people who are involuntarily homeless, for some fuzzy definition of the term involuntary.

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#57

Post by ChrisNoPratt »

Ugly truth in any western country is the mental health issue. Here in Poland (i'm certain in USA is the same) many homeless people are mentally ill and refuses help in many cases. Also they get aggressive with people. Without those problems it would be much easier to help them.

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#58

Post by Swizec »

marvin wrote: post #56
lend000 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taboo question: What is an acceptable homeless population? What is your reference point? Obviously, poverty will always exist in some form, but how much can we realistically improve it?

Norway has practically zero homelessness, since everyone who are incapable of providing for themselves are paid a living wage by the state (and are also provided free housing). There are probably a few people who fall between the cracks in the system, e.g. illegal immigrants who are on the run from the authorities or people who are mentally ill and actively resist medical care or help from the government. But there a…

> But there are practically zero people who are involuntarily homeless, for some fuzzy definition of the term involuntary.

For curiosity's sake, how hard would it be to survive a Norwegian winter as a homeless person? Could that impact how much pressure the government feels in solving the problem?

My impression from living in San Francisco is that nobody really wants to solve homelessness. Sure there's a lot of virtue signaling and a lot of volunteering and donating and stuff, but when it comes right down to it, nobody really cares enough to do anything about it. It's just sort of a part of SF culture/charm that it's full of crazy homeless people who shout at their demons in the street and sometimes drop their pants and masturbate or take a dump on Muni.

Everybody shrugs and goes on with their day. Sometimes they update the latest "poop map" app with their sighting or make a "OMG SF is so weird" post on social media.

But would they pay more taxes to build more homeless shelters? To make mental health care available to everyone? To have a livable basic income for the unemployed? Hell no, that's where you've gone too far from virtue signaling towards solving the problem. Wouldn't want that

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#59

Post by Swizec »

nr23 wrote: post #47
Xylakant wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sort of depends on the definition of poverty. Poverty is currently often defined as percentage of the median income and that would make it "exist" unless all income would be close to the median. It's possible to conceive a society that distributes wealth in such a manner, but I'd currently regard that as implausible.

What you describe is "relative poverty". Statistics indeed says this will always exist. This is about inequality. That's not very relevant here. When talking about homelessness, you're talking about "absolute poverty": the lack of means necessary to meet your basic needs (food, clothing, shelter). In this case, by definition, you can't meet at least the need for shelter. There's no reason that homelessness (or even a…

I doubt many homeless people in the US live in absolute poverty as it's officially defined:

> In 2008, "extreme poverty" widely refers to earning below the international poverty line of $1.25/day (in 2005 prices), set by the World Bank. This measure is the equivalent to earning $1.00 a day in 1996 US prices, hence the widely used expression, living on "less than a dollar a day."[3] The vast majority of those in extreme poverty – 96% – reside in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, The West Indies, East Asia and the Pacific; nearly half live in India and China alone.

Surely most homeless scrounge together at least $1 per day? I bet just begging gets you more than that on average.

Sure that $1 won't get you very far in the US, but it brings you out of absolute poverty and into relative poverty.

Re: San Diego Declares Health Emergency Amid Hepatitis A Outbreak

#60

Post by onion2k »

ChrisNoPratt wrote: post #57

Ugly truth in any western country is the mental health issue. Here in Poland (i'm certain in USA is the same) many homeless people are mentally ill and refuses help in many cases. Also they get aggressive with people. Without those problems it would be much easier to help them.

Without those problems it would be much easier to help them.

The solution to the problem is to eliminate the stigma of mental health issues, to subsidise mental health therapies, and educate people about the signs of deteriorating mental health so they can seek help earlier. If people can be helped before they're homeless then they'd never become a homeless person. That's better for everyone.

I strongly suspect this would be incredibly hard to implement in any country that doesn't have a national health service though, and even if a country does it'd still be difficult.

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