Yikes. It’s looking like some people who visited Coachella this year left with more than just memories and new friends. Herpes. They left with herpes. So if your Coachella wasn’t as “action-packed” as you had originally hoped, consider it a blessing in disguise. TMZ reports that between April 12th-21st, the website HerpAlert saw an increase in their daily average caseload from 12 positive diagnoses per day to 250.
HerpAlert is a website where users can send photos of themselves for diagnosis and receive prescription treatment to help handle herpes outbreaks. Through both weekends, HerpAlert reports that a total of 1,105 infections have hit the towns surrounding Coachella’s festival grounds including Palm Desert, the Coachella Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange.
TMZ reports that the biggest spike in cases to hit HerpAlert prior to this year’s Coachella was 2018’s Oscars Weekend. So if there is anything we can say about festivalgoers vs moviegoers, it’s that festivalgoers without a doubt, f*ck.
All jokes aside though, herpes is extremely common, according to the American Sexual Health Association one in eight people between the ages of 14-49 has genital herpes — and that’s just in the US alone — and 90% of the people who have herpes don’t even realize they have the infection because they’re largely asymptomatic. So if you went to Coachella and got herpes, we’re sorry, but take solace in the fact that it isn’t the end of the world. Treatment is availible and besides a few jokes at your expense in the article above, your life won’t change thaaaaaaat much.
Still, if you went to Coachella and the main act wasn’t on stage, it wouldn’t hurt to get checked out.
