20181212 20180100 1.0 TRUE Geog4640 Disease epidemics can be crippling to local governments. In an instant, medical facilities are overrun, overall economic productivity can grind to a halt, and people quickly search for answers to see if there was anything more that could have been done to mitigate the outbreak, or prevent it altogether. In 2014, a whooping cough epidemic broke out across California. A disease that was considered all but eradicated, thanks to vaccinations, had returned with a vengeance, with an epidemic that continued into 2015. This was due in great part to the reduced number of children being vaccinated for the disease, weakening the overall population immunity and also putting adults at risk (requiring a rare period where adults needed boosters to maintain immunity to whooping cough).