Communities ringed by dry shrubland, bare ground and recently idled farm fields report higher rates of Valley fever than otherwise similar California communities, according to a large new analysis published in Science Advances. The finding arrives as the state moves into the months when Valley fever diagnoses typically peak.
The timing is not incidental. California health officials note that more people breathe in the fungus during the dry stretch of summer and early fall, and because symptoms surface one to three weeks later, reported cases cluster in fall and early winter. Households across the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast and inland Southern California are entering that window now.
