San Diego Begins Bleaching Streets To Contain Outbreak Of Hepatitis A

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

A Hepatitis A outbreak has killed 16 people in the southern California city of San Diego. In order to combat the disease, the city has literally begun spraying the streets with bleach.

An article by NPR said that the Hepatitis A was first identified in the area in early March, according to the county, and declared a public health emergency earlier this month. Nearly 400 people have been infected with the disease.

The majority of those sickened by this viral infection outbreak have been homeless people. A letter from San Diego County health officials stated that hepatitis A is being spread through contact with a “fecally contaminated environment” as well as person-to-person transmission. A big part of the problem is an apparent lack of public restrooms in areas where the homeless population congregates.

Hepatitis A is a highly contagious viral infection, which can prove fatal. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the virus attacks the liver. Adequate personal hygiene and sanitation can help prevent the spread of the virus.

On August 31, the county issued a directive which has forced the city to wash the streets and expand public restroom access, adding that “failure to immediately follow this directive will endanger public health and safety.” Last Friday, the city agreed to the orders and began bleaching the streets on Monday.

According to NPR, the process is lengthy and must be repeated every two weeks to combat the outbreak.

The procedure, as prescribed by the county, involves first spraying down hazardous items such as human waste or needles, waiting 10 minutes, removing the contaminated items, then spraying the area again with bleach. After that, it calls for pressure-washing the area with water.

It is set to be repeated every two weeks, with weekly “spot maintenance,” according to county guidelines. –NPR

Contractors started spraying down certain areas on Monday with a diluted household bleach solution. They continued spraying bleach Wednesday, and are set to hit the final zone of downtown San Diego by Friday, according to a city spokesperson.

Mike Saag, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama, Birmingham focusing on infectious diseases, told NPR that he finds San Diego’s street washing approach reasonable for stemming the spread of hepatitis A. “If there’s a sanitation problem, then the thing to do is clean up the area, and bleach is probably the best disinfectant that we have for this type of viral infection,” Saag said. He added that “once hepatitis A starts to be transmitted in a community like this, it’s kind of hard to stop.” He also recommends getting everyone the vaccine for the virus. But he also admits that that could be an uphill battle since most of those at risk for contracting the disease because of this outbreak live on the streets. “The issue is getting people, especially those who might be living on the street, into care and getting the series [of shots],” Saag adds.

There have been more than 250 mass vaccination events, and nurses have been deployed to areas which have a large homeless population, according to the county. Dozens of hand-washing stations have been installed, with more on the way. But this all began with the city’s skyrocketing poverty and homelessness.

The number of people living on the streets downtown is up some 27 percent to nearly 1,300, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. It’s particularly visible in the 104% increase in the number of tents and hand-built structures, the newspaper adds.

A lack of affordable housing is contributing to the problem and the continual raising of taxes makes it harder on those already struggling financially.

“Seventy-seven percent of unsheltered people said they became homeless in San Diego,” the Union-Tribune reports.

Councilwoman Lorie Zapf recently told member station KPBS that she is concerned about the amount of waste in her area as a result of illegal encampments of homeless people.

 “I went down there myself in July and what I saw with my own eyes was an insane amount of trash,” Zapf said.

“I saw human feces, meth cookers, syringes, stolen property — and all of this will flow right to the ocean if it is not cleaned up, and it will spread hepatitis A virus.”

Rape Victim Commits Suicide After Being Bullied by Cops Protecting Her Wealthy Attacker

Over one year after 21-year-old Megan Rondini committed suicide, a new report is giving insight into the abuse she experienced at the hands of the wealthy man who allegedly raped her and the police who covered it up.

When Rondini was found dead on Feb. 26, 2016, the only note she was accompanied by was an intake form for SMU’s mental health center, in which she revealed that she thought she was “better off dead” more than half of the time, and she listed her major life crises as “Raped, bullied by police, changed university,” according to a report from Buzzfeed.

Just one year before she ended her life, Rondini was attending the University of Alabama on an honors scholarship. She had a 3.8 GPA, she was part of a coveted MBA program, and she was working after class at a lab studying Alzheimer’s disease.

However, all of that changed in July 2015, when Rondini accepted a ride home from one of the wealthiest men in Tuscaloosa. T.J. Bunn Jr. or “Sweet T” is a member of the ST Bunn Construction family. His father and the owner of the company, Terry Bunn, is listed as one of the most influential men in Alabama, in addition to being “an influential University of Alabama donor and supporter.”

When Rondini reported her encounter with “Sweet T” to the police, she did so after escaping from his mansion, going to the hospital for a forensic exam, and then arriving at the police station in the middle of the night, according to the report from Buzzfeed.

“The 34-year-old later told authorities he offered 20-year-old Megan a ride home because he and a friend saw her leaving downtown Tuscaloosa alone. Megan couldn’t remember how she ended up in Sweet T’s white Mercedes on the way to his ornate mansion … But, Megan later told police, she was sober enough by the time he pointed her toward his bedroom to know she didn’t want to have sex with him—and, she said, Sweet T should’ve known it, too.”

Alabama’s rape law states that the victim must be an individual who “engages in sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex by forcible compulsion,” or who is “incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless or mentally incapacitated.”

Buzzfeed reported that because the investigator who interviewed Rondini “quickly decided she hadn’t fought back against Bunn—she hadn’t ‘kicked him or hit him,’” the investigation concluded that “no rape occurred,” and the investigator then began “building a case against Megan, questioning her for multiple crimes she wasn’t even aware she had committed.”

“She did everything that she could to protect herself and to get help,” Megan’s father, Mike Rondini, told Buzzfeed. “She should have gotten that help, and she didn’t. That is a failure on everybody’s part.”

The report also noted that in Tuscaloosa, all sexual offense cases are handled by a multi-agency homicide department, and it is up to a grand jury to decide if the cases move forward.

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However, according to the captain of Tuscaloosa’s homicide department, up to 50 percent of all reported sexual assaults are labeled “special inquiry,” which means that “the victim does not know what or if anything happened” and the investigators don’t think the accusations will result in criminal charges.

“As of February, only 10 cases out of 98 sexual assault reports in 2016 were heard by a grand jury, and 12 out of 124 from 2015. (Those numbers don’t include a few dozen cases that are still pending.) The county district attorney’s office couldn’t say how many sexual assault cases in Tuscaloosa led to formal charges, because it did not begin using a computerized tracking program until late last year.”

Instead of taking her allegations seriously, investigators picked apart Rondini’s story. She claimed that after Bunn forced her to have sex with him, he passed out, and she couldn’t get out of his room. She said she tried to escape from the second-story window, but then couldn’t find her keys, and went on a frantic search that included taking a gun she found in Bunn’s car because she was leaving the house in the middle of the night, alone. The part about Rondini taking the gun was the part investigator Adam Jones seemed intent to focus on.

“Before I ask you any questions, you got any reasoning behind why you did what you did?” Jones said.

“What do you mean?” Rondini said.

“I just need you to tell me, once we get into the questioning, what your reasoning was about why you did these things,” he said.

“I was never going to hurt anybody with it,” Rondini said, crying. “I got it just to protect myself but I don’t eat meat, I could never kill anything, even if it came to that point I wouldn’t have been able to use it on a person.”

Eventually, Jones returned to Rondini’s rape allegations. “Based on your statements to me, you said that you never resisted him,” he said.

“I did resist him,” Rondini said, listing the ways she did, from repeatedly telling Bunn she wanted to leave to turning away when he kissed her. “I wanted to go home,” she said. “He didn’t take me home.”

“Look at it from my side,” Jones replied calmly. “You never kicked him or hit him or tried to resist him.”

Ultimately, with help from the Tuscaloosa police, Rondini never filed charges, and Bunn was never held accountable. Rondini left Tuscaloosa and transferred to SMU at the end of the fall 2015 semester, before taking her own life in early 2016.

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Following the release of Buzzfeed’s report, the Bunn family was quick to release a statement, claiming that the report “distorted or disregarded matters of fact.”

“While a police investigation found no evidence of sexual assault, the young woman admitted to acts that subjected her to possible criminal prosecution,” the statement from the Bunn family said. “At one point, the young woman’s family took steps to bring civil action against various parties who are the targets of these unfounded accusations. Such action would undoubtedly include demands for financial compensation.”

The University of Alabama also released a statement, insisting that the recent news accounts “do not tell the full story.”

“Information published by news outlets this week has unfortunately ignored some significant facts,” the statement from UA said. “When Megan went to the hospital, a University advocate met her at the hospital to provide support and stayed with her throughout the examination process.”

The Rondini family’s lawyer, Leroy Maxwell Jr., told AL.com that the family is planning to file a federal Title IX complaint against the University of Alabama by the end of June.

“Megan was loved by everyone who came in contact with her.  Her loss is everyone’s loss,” Maxwell said. “Title IX, the University of Alabama, the Tuscaloosa Sheriff’s department and the overall judicial system in Tuscaloosa let her down on every level. Through litigation our firm is committed to doing everything in our power to shine a light on Tuscaloosa’s systemic problem with sexual assault.”