Good News For Modern Man

The Black Death is back, and so are these other diseases you thought were gone

Also:

Whooping cough

There are "clusters" of pertussis in L.A. County as I type.

Scarlet fever

Polio

Bubonic plague

Every decade or so locally, per the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health's Acute Communicable Disease Control.

The potential for exposure exists throughout the county, but the major threat of plague to humans is in the rural recreational and wilderness areas of the Angeles National Forest, as well as the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains. Since 1979 there have been three cases of human plague contracted within the county. Two cases were the result of contact with infected rodent fleas, the third was from exposure to a pet cat infected with plague.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services has recently detected evidence of plague in both feral and free-roaming domestic cats within the county. These animals can prey upon rodents infected with plague or can transport plague-infected fleas.