Here’s a Cure for America’s Latest Zika Panic

Health officials fully expected a few mosquito-borne cases here. They’re on it.

Aedes aegyptiTorres Garcia/Shutterstock

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Health officials have reported that four cases of Zika in Florida were likely spread from person to person by domestic mosquitoes. This is the moment Democratic politicians—and a few southern Republicans—have been warning about. The finding is bound to create a lot more scary rhetoric and dire headlines.

But here’s the thing: There’s no need to freak out—not yet, at least.

We knew this was going to happen. Back in May, I spoke with Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is leading US efforts to create a Zika vaccine. Here’s what he said:

It is likely that we will have restricted local transmission—small local outbreaks? My call would be that we will. Because we’ve had dengue and chikungunya, which are in the same regions of South and Central America and the Caribbean, and are transmitted by exactly the same mosquito. Historically we’ve had small local outbreaks of dengue in Florida and Texas, and a small local outbreak of chikungunya in Florida, which makes me conclude that sooner or later, we have going to have small local outbreaks of Zika—whether that’s five cases or 30—likely along the Gulf Coast.

This is exactly what we’re seeing. And why is this not a huge problem? Because we’re almost certainly not going to let it become one. Just as Fauci predicted, this likely outbreak—scientists haven’t actually found any infected mosquitoes yet—is highly isolated. According to the New York Times, the suspected “area of active transmission is limited to a one-square-mile area” near downtown Miami.

With there’s an outbreak like this one in the United States, mosquito-control workers and public health officials swarm all over it.

Aedes aegypti, the most likely culprit, is what University of California-Davis geneticist Greg Lanzaro calls a “lazy mosquito.” It doesn’t fly far. In its entire lifespan of two to three weeks, it might travel a few hundred meters, another expert told me. So it’s not coming for you. The mosquitoes that picked up the virus may be limited to one small neighborhood.

Here’s what happens when we have such an outbreak: Mosquito-control workers and public health officials swarm all over it. Aegypti is an elusive little bugger, but you can bet that within that one square mile, eradication specialists and epidemiologists will be going house to house until they figure out where the aegypti are breeding, and wipe them out.

Compared with, say, Puerto Ricans, mainland Americans are also protected by our lifestyle. People in the Deep South tend to have air conditioning and screens on their windows. We also don’t usually store drinking water in open containers, as families often do in the tropics. We spend more time indoors, out of the heat. And all of this helps minimize contact with the mosquitoes. Consider that before Zika became a problem, as Fauci mentioned, we also had periodic outbreaks of dengue and Chikungunya, spread by the same mosquito. As I pointed out previously:

When was the last time you worried about Chikungunya or dengue—or malaria, for that matter? Those diseases are far scarier than Zika. WHO estimates (conservatively) that malaria infected at least 214 million people last year and killed 438,000, mostly children under five. Then there’s dengue, named from the Swahili phrase ki denga pepo (“a sudden overtaking by a spirit”)—which tells you something about how painful it is. Each year, dengue, also called “breakbone fever,” infects 50-100 million people, sickens about 70 percent of them—half a million very severely—and kills tens of thousands. Brazil, in addition to its Zika problem, is experiencing a record dengue epidemic. Health authorities there tallied 1.6 million cases and 863 deaths last year—and the 2016 toll is on track to be worse. Zika is seldom fatal.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore the latest news, of course. If you’re pregnant, especially in southern Florida, you’re probably already taking precautions to avoid mosquito bites, like using repellents and eliminating any standing water on your property. FDA officials are asking people in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to refrain from giving blood until we know what’s going on. But most Americans, even most southerners, have little reason to freak out.

Only one of the six scientists I interviewed was concerned that Zika might take off in the continental United States. “You would never see Zika virus, Chikungunya virus, or dengue virus sweep across the country the way West Nile did, even in the regions where these mosquitoes are,” UC-Davis epidemiologist Chris Barker told me. “Because that’s just not how it works in our country.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate