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."
Buy DEET (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Buy DEET (Score:5, Informative)
>> you can spray it on your clothes
Not synthetics, however, which tend to degrade from DEET.
nylon (Score:5, Funny)
Nylon is fine, but it will destroy other stuff. Permethrin should only be sprayed on clothes, but it does a good job too, actually kills the things.
I think we should bring back DDT worldwide, they have lost some of their developed immunities by now. Once they start developing immunities we can start with the organochlorides, then the organophosphates, then the pyrethrins, and by then they should be vulnerable to DDT again. Sure, we won't have any birds or flowering plants, but we can get by on wind pollinated crops. Probably need to devote some extra money to cancer research too.
Re:nylon (Score:5, Funny)
Honey bees are not native to the US, so no big deal. Native REAL AMERICAN flowering plants will do just fine. It's those illegal immigrant flowering plants that will disappear.
Re:nylon (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with DDT, you just have to use per the label instructions i.e. indoors; it does bio-accumulate in fish and does nasty things to birds that eat fish, which is why it's not used outdoors. In mammals like Humans, its very safe, used to be used for delousing people and the Sales-driods used to eat it by the teaspoon to demonstrate it's safety. This does mean that DDT is not a good fit for mosquito control in countries where window screens are wide spread; it's great for bedbugs. Bacillus thuringiensis israeliensis works on mosquitos outdoors.
Re:nylon (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with DDT, you just have to use per the label instructions i.e. indoors; it does bio-accumulate in fish and does nasty things to birds that eat fish, which is why it's not used outdoors.
Yours is the best comment ever made on Slashdot - ever. Nothing wrong with it, then a partial list of what's wrong with it.
You win one internet.
The problem is, You say there's nothing wrong with it. I know others that say there's nothing wrong with it at all, and fully intend to use it outdoors if it were legal again. I also know others who acknowledge that it is bad for avian wildlife but do not care. They will use it for whatever they damn well please if they get their hands on it. They won't follow the instructions. And that sir, is the reason it is illegal. Nothing wrong with PCB's either by your logic. I mean it's hell on guinea pigs, and just gives people a little acne. But nothing wrong with it.
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You know what else works really well on mosquitoes?
Napalm.
Of course, I shudder to think of what would happen should they develop an immunity to that...
Re:nylon (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what else works really well on mosquitoes?
Bats.
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Oh, that works too. There's a bat that's nested in my attic for the past few summers - I call him Bruce, for obvious reasons. He even seems to have formed an alliance, or at least a truce, with my cats (work great on the moles and possums).
Now if only I had something to kill all the spiders... napalm perhaps?
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Spiders eat mosquitos too, name each one of them Patrick and call it a day.
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Barn swallows love mosquitos.
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Barn swallows love mosquitos.
And if you watch in the sky in the evening, the swallows will swoop around until almost dark, then suddenly the bats will take over. Pretty cool to watch. They both eat lots of flying nasties.
Re:nylon (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but even the best Major Leaguers can only manage a bit over 0.300.
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More seriously, I am happy to see that the bat house I put up seems to be attracting bats.
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Dragonflies and Daddy Longlegs spiders too. Various birds as well.
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Eat less sugar and more hot peppers.
Neem oil (available in convenient pump spray) also helps.
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This.
Also, maybe 15 years ago or so I was up in Wyoming on a fishing trip. We were near the Medicine Bow river on a private stretch one evening and the mosquitoes were the worst I have ever seen.
The following day, we stopped in a tiny little tackle shop with one old guy working the counter.
"Have any mosquito repellant?" we asked
"I dun use that sheet. Whatchu need is some pure vaniller extract. It's in aisle two."
The old guy was right. It worked quite well, but I suspect it worked well because it coated
I prefer the 1950s (Score:2)
DDT it is good for you and it is good for me!
Re:Buy DEET (Score:5, Insightful)
Where?
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Antarctica and certain parts of Siberia.
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Where might you suggest we go? The bastards live everywhere.
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"Toxify your local environment and expose yourself to biochemically active substances..."
Life is full of tradeoffs, and you still die in the end.
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That's it. Toxify your local environment and expose yourself to biochemically active substances... Why not just move the fuck away from places with mosquitoes?
Where do you live, McMurtry? Why not simply get an electronic repellant? I've had one for years, they work. Well, until the battery goes out; I think that's how I got the "flu" a couple of months ago that I suspect was West Nile Virus. The next one I get will have a pilot light so I can see it's working.
Resources from TX Dept of Emergency Management (Score:5, Informative)
The "emergency" was declared primarily so we could gain access to 5 pesticide-spraying planes from the Texas Department of Emergency Management [dallasobserver.com].
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We are not living out Monty Python's "Bring Out Your Dead" sketch.
Dallas is more of a crunchy frog town.
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Sorry for the wishful thinking...
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Are there no pesticide spraying planes NOT owned by the Emergency Management department? I can't imagine that it is that complicated or expensive to hire crop dusters.
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:Spray planes in Texas (Score:5, Informative)
Or maybe they're exercising due diligence by not allowing every yahoo with a crop duster to shower pesticides on residential areas.
The only ones allowed to hire aircraft to spray for mosquitoes in the first place are local governments and state health districts, so your concern is completely out of place. Only government agencies are allowed to purchase such aerial mosquito spray services here in Texas. The problem is that the supply of qualified pilots and planes ready to service these official government contracts is being artificially and unreasonably restricted by another government agency.
Also, "crop dusters" are not "yahoos".
You may be stuck thinking in the 1950's when the industry was not very regulated, but today "aerial applicators" (they are not referred to as "crop dusters" anymore except by folks who don't know what they're talking about and are just trying to stir up negativity) are a highly regulated and professional business. The aircraft cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes well over a million each. The pilots have to go thru special training and certification programs in addition to being certified by the FAA as commercial pilots. They also have to be licensed by every state they operate in for the chemical handling and deployment regardless of whether it's sprayed by aircraft or ground vehicles, in addition to the federal FAA certification requirements on the pilot and the aircraft. They are all also required to have boatloads of special, very expensive insurance too, to cover the chemical cleanup in case of accidents.
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Oh, suuure (Score:2)
.
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CHEMTRAILS!!
We'll right back, with more Art Bell.
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TRUCKS!
Sense and anti-sense!
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I dunno, 14 people dying of something in eight months is still pretty low even by modern standards. About 100 people have been murdered in Dallas so far this year, so you're still more likely to be shot than die of West Nile.
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A lot of places in the USA aren't very different from Africa. But you bunch aren't dying from as many nasty diseases.
All it takes is for people to screw up big time and one of the diseases could take hold.
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Hell, 14 shootings in Chicago is a slow weekend. Those mosquitoes are slackers.
Vampire Mosquito's (Score:2)
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But, to offset that, you can track the (not so) little bastards by radar.
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Perhaps once the Paralympics are over we can pick up a cheap AA battery from London for mosquito control.
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er... what?
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When you have big mosquitoes, you need big guns!
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OK - but what does that have to do with AA batteries, London, or the Paralympics?
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Should visit the outer banks in NC, they can kill the deer there.
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I'm sure its bad up there, but can't imagine it would hold a candle next to the mosquitos down here in the New Orleans area.....
I mean, after all...the mosquito is our state bird you know....
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Here in Maine, the Mosquito's will drain your blood long before the West Nile Virus can do any damage. It's been an unusually humid, and wet summer.
Pft. You've never been to Canada I take it. Here in Canada, black flies are the size of small dogs, and will carry of small children to use for their meals. And mosquito's are about half as big. If you get up near Algonquin National Park, sometimes you can hear the screams of deer, and moose. That's the sound of the mosquito's sucking them dry in one go.
But... What About The Mosquitoes? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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.
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Wow, that article came across as being written by the John Birch Society.
Fearmonger (Score:3)
This is a bunch of fearmongering BS. There were dire warnings on national news this morning, too.
So what is the extent of the "widespread outbreak" that is causing all the disease, mayhem and death that "appears likely to continue to cause widespread and severe illness and loss of life"?
Almost 700 cases have been reported across the country
WOW! Almost 700 cases across the country! Just this year! They don't actually say how many in Texas, or Dallas. Does that mean 700 deaths? No. 700 serious illnesses? No. 700 people, though, right? No.
There have been cases of infection reported in people, birds or mosquitoes
Ah. This is cause for a panic and a state of emergency? What for?
The move clears the way for aerial spraying to kill infected mosquitoes that transmit the disease.
Ah - there we go. Hmmm. "Don't worry about the stuff being sprayed out of those planes, citizen. It's for your protection!"
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> stuff being sprayed out of those planes
hypnogas used to get people to take off the tinfoil hats.
Watch out next will be the mind ray broadcasters installed in the smart meters.
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I guess you don't remember what they used to use for mosquitoes: DDT. Check it out - it was safe for humans, but didn't turn out so well for the fish and birds.
But, you know, you should trust whatever it is they are spraying these days. I'm sure it's perfectly safe. Anyone that questions it is bound to be a conspiracy nut. Right?
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Well, there are degrees of safety, and what they are using for the mosquitoes are synthetic pyrethroids. These break down quickly, and are sprayed at night to minimize the effect on beneficial insects like bees, which stay in their hives at night. http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/What-is-Duet-Adulticide-Aerial-Spraying-West-Nile-Virus-166325486.html [nbcdfw.com]
Living is terminal. In the grand scheme of things, pyrethroids are pretty low risk for humans and, dispensed properly, should be low impact for wildlife and be
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". This is cause for a panic and a state of emergency? What for?"
what you, and others on Slashdot don't seem to have any grasp on is that this is an indicator. Left unattended and it will be tens of thousands of people. Why can't you people grasp the idea of cutting it short?
Also coming to the US is Dengay fever.
Another thing we should stop short.
"Ah - there we go."
Ah, you're a loon.
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""Ah - there we go.""
"Ah, you're a loon."
Actually, he has a point.
Aerial spraying, while better targeted today than ever before does have a high rate of collateral damage and the pesticide being used now includes chemicals which are designed to cause "benign excitation" to ensure "wider delivery".
Reps for the company did not state what that compound was, nor how it would affect species outside the target scope.
All of this for 7 confirmed deaths and 200+ suspected cases in the affected area. Malaria affect
Give me a break! (Score:2)
Speaking of mosquitoes (Score:2)
Dengay is coming to the US as well. But ignorant dipshit want to stop an effective way of limiting.
http://www.pusware.com/quackcast/quackcast97.mp3 [pusware.com]
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Don't you mean Dengue? Don't make fun of ignorance if you're going to get the name wrong.
Living in the area (Score:3)
That said, I think treating it like a dire emergency is not the right way to go. I really don't want me or my children breathing in any chemicals unnecessarily. If any of us get sick from the virus, we'll go to our doctors that we trust or a emergency room. With all the pollution we already have on top of allergens, I really don't want to know what adding those chemicals to the mix will do, but there's a chance that it may be even less treatable than the disease.
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"State of Emergency" is poorly named, but that's what it's called. It's not an emergency, it's a state of readiness.
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"State of emergency" mostly means that un-budgeted funds are available to help with the problem. It doesn't have anything to do with "direness" or drastic actions.
I live in Dallas (Score:2)
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Does Dallas currently spray for mosquitos, either by truck or aerially?
Houston has always sprayed by truck, and Austin sprays by truck, but a lot less than Houston.
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http://keranews.org/post/company-tries-reassure-residents-about-aerial-spraying [keranews.org]
Re:No one has posted in minutes! (Score:5, Funny)
They are all off changing their PSN passwords
Re:No one has posted in minutes! (Score:5, Informative)
Unlikely ;)
For most, they won't even know they are exposed. This is a lot like SARS in that respect. It only severely effects about 1% of those infected. About 20% get mild symptoms, headaches, etc.
It does adversely affect those with compromised immune systems though (the elderly, immunocompromised, etc).
30% concentration of DEET is recommended for adults. Certainly NOT 90%.
10% DEET concentration for children.
The concentrations the poster above is suggesting would be toxic.
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The concentrations you are suggesting would be worthless. I have tried both and only the concentrations that can only be applied to clothes and not skin seem to keep the bastards away.
I suggest we start fighting fire with fire, lets create some diseases that kill mosquitos.
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You should probably let the CDC know that...
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/qa/insect_repellent.htm [cdc.gov]
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And another.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/wnv/wnvfaq4.shtml [nyc.gov]
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Does a genetically engineered selectively crippling genetic disease [scientificamerican.com] count?
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Dragonflies and bats are the mosquitoes natural enemies. Put up bat boxes to get more bats and they will have a field day munching on the buggers. The one downside to dragonflies is they need swamps and such to breed, the same place as mosquitoes do.
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in your scenario you get a balance with mosquitoes that still carry the disease. So, it's not really any good.
Genetically engineered sterile male mosquitoes is how to go about it.
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Bats only go after mosquitoes if there is nothing better to eat (like moths). It would take a whole lot of bats to make any appreciable dent in the mosquito population.
A whole lot of bats (Score:2)
... It would take a whole lot of bats to make any appreciable dent in the mosquito population.
On the plus side, though, then we'd have a whole lot of bats! [batconservation.org]
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The concentrations you are suggesting would be worthless.
I can only relate to my experience, but I agree — when I was in the jungle/rainforest part of Sabah, Borneo, we attempted to use DEET to keep the mosquitos from landing on us. The stuff from camping stores seemed to attract, rather than repel them — even going up to as higher percentage as we had with us (around 90%, from memory), and it was not much use, even when applied directly to the (small areas) of exposed skin.
Covering up as much skin as possible, and hoping that the mosquitos found o
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30% concentration of DEET is recommended for adults. Certainly NOT 90%.
I'm not seeing the recomendations your talking about,
Re:No one has posted in minutes! (Score:4, Informative)
Look here:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/consultations/deet/guidelines.html [cdc.gov]
Studies have also shown that anything above 50% provided no additional protection (but did provider longer protection). In other words, it was no more effective, but lasted longer.
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/toolkit/DEET.pdf [cdc.gov]
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In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency has stated that concentrations of up to 100% are safe for adults. The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that concentrations of up to 30% are safe for children. In both cases the repellent must be applied properly! Consumer Reports recommends 30% to 50% for adults, and helpfully explains that higher concentrations last longer, but don't repel any more effectively than lower concentrations.
Personally, I've used 100% DEET for a week at a time, a few times
Man-Made climate change (Score:3)
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West Nile can't be stopped by hordes of rednecks with CCWs. (kidding on the square)
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But West Nile can stop the hordes of rednecks :-)
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Re:huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the reason California has its debt load is because of following a Conservative anti-tax policy. That, and their electricity deregulation which gave boatloads of money to companies like Enron all in the name of a free market.
You'll never understand nor admit that it's the right-wing policies that harmed California, nor that the fix is relatively simple.
BTW, if California is broke, then so is Texas. They both have huge debt loads.
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Uhh... look at Arizona too, so broke they sold their capital building and they are about as conservative as you get. The whole argument is just stupid, the most prosperous states in the union were always left leaning. Oil put Texas and Alaska in a status of their own. Of course that's still no reason to base a decision. Instead you have to look at the retarded methods used to deal with a budget issue. Until the Bush tax cuts, revenue was looking pretty good, we were on track to be debt free. Now you see peo
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There broke because conservatives change taxes without changing services. It's their overall approach is to divorce the idea of taxes from services, cut taxes and then watch everything fail.
It's nice to know you live up to the Texas reputation of inbred morons.
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Come to the Old East in the coming weeks, whargoul. I'd guess 4 out of 5 yards with signs in them will be repping D, going by previous elections.
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There must be a lot of Californians there. That explains all the In-N-Out Burgers I saw when I was there this summer.
A little. (Score:5, Informative)
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In reality, all a "state of emergency" means is that state money is available to combat the problem. There may also be some laws put into effect (like getting fined if you leave standing water on your property). It does not mean that things are dire or that drastic measures are being taken, which is how many people read it.
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It is in area news [dallasnews.com], but it hasn't hit the national airwaves yet. However, the local news doesn't describe it as a "state of emergency" like the BBC does. Maybe though they just don't want to get people overly scared. What is happening is pretty much the same as what happened in New York a couple years ago.
Hasn't hit the national airwaves yet? I heard about it this morning on NPR, and the report stated that the locals have claimed it a "state of emergency", presumably for receiving/requesting emergency funds to combat it.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/npr.php?id=158911307 [publicradio.org]
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Is is that you didn't look or just aren't willing to?
CBS News [cbsnews.com]
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Severe West Nile is treated with supportive care. It makes a tremendous difference to survival rates and, since you're hospitalized, potentially for quite a while, it's probably fairly expensive in the US.
2 mosquitoes with one stone (Score:2)
Don't we have a sustained unemployment problem nationwide? ...check! ...check!
Wouldn't it be a burden on taxpayers to have to provide supportive care to people who are just making the unemployment figures high?
Is there a way we can make this West Nile Virus a national epidemic, and maybe increase it's potency? (I kid, I kid!)
Re:I'm in VA... (Score:5, Funny)
That post was not insightful. deserves -1 ignorant.
So you are saying we shouldn't worry about it until thousands die?
How about you let the smart people handles and you just worry about getting your ticket to the 'B' ark.
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So you are saying we shouldn't worry about it until thousands die?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Let the CDC worry about it. Worrying and/or panicking over some disease you have almost no chance of contracting is just pointless.
How about you let the smart people handles [sic] and you just worry about getting your ticket to the 'B' ark.
Did you just make that up,
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Mod parent up. This is common sense.
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I'm not emptying my pool, but it's chlorinated, so that should be OK, shouldn't it?
Unfortunately, a lot of the wetlands in Massachusetts are protected areas, so they're huge mosquito breeding grounds. It'd be nice to drain them all, but that has side effects.