There’s been a 2,083% increase in cases since the festival’s first weekend.
This year’s Coachella festival is being linked to a spike in herpes cases in southern California, it is being reported.
According to HerpAlert, an ATD diagnosis app, there’s been a 2,083% increase in reported herpes cases in Indio, California and the surrounding area since the first weekend of the popular festival.
Usually seeing around 12 cases of herpes daily, the number bumped up to 250 during the first day of Coachella. Reporting to TMZ that it diagnosed 1,105 cases in Ssouthern California where festival-goers resided, HerpAlert specified these regions to include Indio, Palm Desert, Coachella Valley, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego.
Founded two years ago, the way in which HerpAlert works is users upload photos of their infections for doctors to diagnose. Then they can issue prescriptions to treat the very common virus.
Prior to Coachella, the largest spike in herpes cases came during the 2018 Oscars weekend. It was reported that there were 60 cases per day.
Meanwhile, Ariana Grande‘s Coachella performance hit a sour note on Sunday after she was pelted with a lemon. The pop singer was hit with the fruit as she performed a medley of ‘Right There’ and ‘Break Your Heart Right Back’ on the second weekend of the California festival.
Footage posted on Twitter shows the fruit hitting Grande in the chest as she walked across the stage with her backing dancers. Responding almost immediately to the incident, she said: “That’s ’cause one of ya’ll threw a lemon at me, shit.”
Ariana Grande has also defended Justin Bieber after he hit out at a critic’s response to his recent Coachella cameo.
The Canadian pop star, who is currently taking a hiatus from music, made a one-off appearance during Grande’s headline set at Coachella on Sunday night (April 21). The pair sang Bieber’s 2015 hit, ‘Sorry’, to the surprised crowd.
