FRISKY FRIDAY FIGURES: Looking for Love? Don’t Go to THESE States

Cases of common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) hit record highs across the US during the first year of the pandemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their annual surveillance report for 2020, and it shows cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis dropped slightly to 2.4 million in the first year of the pandemic…  But officials warned this is likely due to a drop in the number of those getting tested.

The data shows that Mississippi was the top (bottom?) state for cases of chlamydia, per 100,000 people, with 803.7 cases.  And the southern state was also the top state for cases of gonorrhea with 462.8 per 100,00 people.

Next up:  Nevada.  The gaming state took the top spot for syphilis cases per 100,000 people with 72 cases; while Mississippi came in second with 71.6 cases.  Bad bet on love, there.

Safest love destination:  As far as the least-infected state, Vermont took the bottom spot among all three sets of data about STDs.

Mississippi’s state epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers says, “High rates in Mississippi are impacted by a number of factors including social determinants of health and inadequate access to care, negative impacts on health in communities with high social vulnerability, lack of health care coverage, which may contribute to a delay in seeking care, increases in drug use, and social stigmatization of being diagnosed with an STD.  Some increases may certainly have been due to the interruption in routine healthcare access over the last two years.”

Learn more, here:  (Daily Mail)

• CDC data shows that Mississippi lead the US in cases of both chlamydia and gonorrhea in the year 2020, while Nevada had the top number of syphilis cases—Vermont had the lowest number of cases per 100,000 people for all three STDs