Well, it’s almost time for the Olympics, at ground zero of the Zika outbreak, amidst the chaos and clutter, and perhaps the danger of a corrupt third world city, and its effects: unfinished and unsafe, or as the Australians said, unlivable buildings, corrupt government, out of control police. To the point that the nations are no longer sending their best, they’re sending those willing to risk their lives. But the Brazilian politicians and their buddies got rich, and will get richer, to the envy of their counterparts in Chicago.
Usually, I’m fairly blasé about the various health scares that we hear about, the various types of flu, and all that. Most strike me as a way to control the population, or make money, or something along that line. Zika is apparently different. It seems the boy really did see a wolf this time. Gene Veith over at Cranach tells us.
The Center for Disease Control has issued a travel advisory warning people to stay away from Miami’s Wynwood district, an artsy area where the particular mosquito that carries the Zika virus is resisting efforts at eradication. Fifteen people in the district have come down with Zika, which causes birth-defects in new-born babies. This is the first time that the CDC has issued a travel advisory for the United States.
Scientists have proven the direct link between the virus and micro-encephaly, or extra small heads in babies.
And his linked article from the AP says this:
MIAMI (AP) — The mosquitoes spreading Zika in Miami are proving harder to eradicate than expected, the nation’s top disease-fighter said Tuesday as authorities sprayed clouds of insecticide in the ground-zero neighborhood, emptied kiddie pools and handed out cans of insect repellent to the homeless.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the mosquito-control efforts in the bustling urban neighborhood aren’t achieving the hoped-for results, suggesting the pests are resistant to the insecticides or are still finding standing water in which to breed.
“We’re not seeing the number of mosquitoes come down as rapidly as we would have liked,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Mosquito control experts said that’s no surprise to them, describing the Aedes aegypti mosquito as a “little ninja” capable of hiding in tiny crevices, sneaking up on people’s ankles, and breeding in just a bottle cap of standing water.
Fifteen people have become infected with Zika in Miami’s Wynwood arts district, officials said Tuesday. These are believed to be the first mosquito-transmitted cases in the mainland U.S., which has been girding for months against the epidemic coursing through Latin America and the Caribbean. […]
“We have to totally rethink mosquito control for Aedes aegypti,” Doyle said. “It’s like a little ninja. It’s always hiding.”
Frieden complained that in the U.S., “we really dismantled the mosquito monitoring and control infrastructure over the past few decades.”
The result: “We have blind spots where we don’t know where the mosquito populations are and what the susceptibility is to different insecticides,” the CDC director said.
The U.S. government might have underestimated how difficult it would be to control Zika’s spread, said University of Florida public health researcher Ira Longini.
But he also said there aren’t enough of the disease-transmitting mosquitoes living in and around houses to cause long-term or widespread outbreaks in this country.
“In defense of the CDC and the government, it’s a difficult problem to solve,” he said.
via ‘Little ninja’: Zika-spreading mosquito puts up tough fight
Which is, of course, pretty much self-serving poppycock. This country, back in the 50s and 60s managed to eradicate malaria, itself and go far towards eliminating it in the world. Not many remember that, but we did, and yes, it was wonderful to play in the backyard without mosquitos, back in that long-lost golden age. Bet it would have worked just as well on this particular brand of mosquitos, as well.
But it won’t happen. Why? Because we banned that insecticide, based on unproven accusations, from essentially one author. It’s quite possible, of course, that we were over-using it, especially in agriculture. But it should also be remembered that it was responsible for preventing many outbreaks of typhus, malaria, and yellow fever, during and after World War Two.
What was this wonder chemical? Dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane (DDT). And more than anyone else, we can blame Rachel Carson and her book, Silent Spring, for every case of zika, malaria, and typhus that occurs now.
No wonder the Luddite left considers her a hero.
