West Nile Virus Outbreak Puts Dallas In State of Emergency 167
Penurious Penguin writes with news from the BBC that the city of Dallas "is experiencing a widespread outbreak of mosquito-borne West Nile Virus that has caused and appears likely to continue to cause widespread and severe illness and loss of life," and writes that the city "has declared a state of emergency. West Nile virus can be asymptomatic or produce multiple symptoms, but can also lead to fevers, and the potentially fatal meningitis or encephalitis. Birds are the most common carriers and mosquitoes are the vector for human infection."
West Nile Emergency?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
What crack have the Dallas County Commissioners been smoking that John Whiley Price [wikipedia.org] has been dealing around the County Courthouse? We've had West Nile outbreaks every year since 2002ish (as I recall) and the city used ground spray trucks previously. We've had approximateley 100 people every year contract the issue and about 20 die from it. I agree with the above comment that the emergency is manufactured, but I suspect it's so that the county can get access to cheaper to purchase pesticides that have a higher chance of side effects.
Those that get infected are already on the watch list for diseases (Young, Old, Immune system compromised). It's quite simple how to avoid it
1. Don't go outside at dawn/dusk
2. Drain standing water pools
3. Wear a decent bug spray.
4. Wear clothing over most parts of your body if you must go outside for extended periods of time
Needless to say that the night when they overfly my neighborhood I'm going to shut all my windows/doors and not think about what's happening outside.
Spray planes in Texas (Score:5, Interesting)
There are hundreds of spray planes here in Texas, privately owned, all sitting idle and their owners/pilots are dying for work right now due to the nationwide drought that has killed off most of the farm crops this year and eliminated this season's work for the pilots. One of my best friends owns and flies an Air Tractor and the past two years he's only gotten about half the spraying contracts he normally gets so he's desperate for work so he doesn't have to sell the plane. He's looking into the mosquito spraying contracts, but the state is making it so difficult to get the extra licenses needed for spraying mosquitoes that it seems like they're deliberately protecting someone's monopoly or something.
Re:West Nile Emergency?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Needless to say that the night when they overfly my neighborhood I'm going to shut all my windows/doors and not think about what's happening outside.
I live in a swamp and they sometimes do the aerial spraying combined with trucks that drive around spraying. Honestly I think it does more harm than good. It does kill the mosquitoes for a short time but then they bounce back with a vengeance.
The main problem we have seen is that the spraying kills almost all the predators of the mosquitoes. Dragonflies, toads, tree frogs, praying mantis, etc. all get killed by the spray either directly or their eggs are killed (plus it kills honey bees). Then the following years all that's left is the mosquitoes and they are much worse. It's a vicious cycle.
For the last few years they have stopped spraying and now there are more predators than I have ever seen in 30+ years. There are mosquitoes but they're more or less kept in check by the predators. It's a lot more consistent situation compared to when they spray.