The state’s billboard a few blocks from my house warning us all to watch out for West Nile virus naturally gets me wondering why we’d invest so much in advertising against that one disease. Well, according to the South Dakota Department of Health, we need more caution about West Nile virus, because our fair state has the “greatest number of West Nile virus incidents.”
Well, that’s not quite right. According to the CDC, South Dakota has never had the greatest number of West Nile virus cases in the U.S. We did place third in 2003 and 2005 and fourth in 2016, and we’re an impressive sixth for the two decades from 1999 to 2019 (behind Illinois, Nebraska, Texas, Colorado, and California). We had the eighth-highest number of total West Nile cases in 2020.
Where we absolutely lead the nation is in rates of West Nile virus cases and deaths relative to population. According to data compiled by the redoubtable then-state epidemiologist Lon Kightlinger in 2017, from 1999 to 2015, South Dakota West Nile incidence rates per 100,000 population were 3.1 per year for neuroinvasive cases of West Nile (that’s when it gets into your brain and wreaks havoc), 15.1 total cases per year, and 3.93 deaths over the entire 16-year period. Nationally, those rates per 100K were 0.4/year for neuroinvasive, 0.8/year for all, and 0.62 for deaths. Only six other states had more than 1.0 neuroinvasive cases per 100K population per year. Only two other states (Nebraska and North Dakota) had more than 10.0 total cases per 100K per year from West Nile. Over the entire 16-year period, only twelve other states had more than 1.0 deaths per 100K; only two, Wyoming, and Nebraska, had more than 3.0. And it appears we led the nation in neuroinvasive West Nile incident rates per 100K population in 2020:
We can’t blame anti-vax lunkheadery for this infection leadership: there is no vaccine for West Nile disease. South Dakota just has lots of culex mosquitoes. So we just have to roll down our sleeves and keep spending government money ($500K in grants from SDDOH again this year) to roll those fogger trucks.
I almost hate to ask, but .. how do they get the PCR swab up the mosquitos’ noses?
Oh my goodness .. 5G as a war theater technology can induce flu-like symptoms.
” 5G as a war theater technology can induce flu-like symptoms.” I’m thinking that is what someone had instead of the corona virus he claims he had, twice. Also think what he is sucking up his nose is the result of some of the crazy rants he leaves here.
Well, its hard to find a state with more mosquitoes. They fog here at night. Sometimes too early, we were swimming in our pool one night and the plane came over. It’s usually a truck well after bedtime. You know John that Malaria mosquitoes have a second nose for smelling humans. You’ve learned something already today.
Thanks, Mark!
I do not snort drugs as cibvet implies.
However, I have tried herbal vaporization of cannabis for chronic back pain .. it works!
Regarding noses, can I get some credit for a funny joke?
Well, its very hard to tell when your joking, I’m deadly serious all the time.
Too bad there is not a vaccine, yet, for magat stoopidity. They sure as shooting ain’t dying off from covid fast enough to suit half the population.
I fear West Nile more than I fear Covid-19.
Note to cannabis tourists:
The West Nile in Colorado is 99% present only in the Republican parts of the state.
Those are also the parts that tourists aren’t visiting unless they like oil rigs and MAGA hats.
For SD weed tourists, those are the parts north of Denver and south of the Wyoming border (Greeley and east of Ft. Collins), which are the closest dispensaries to Rapid City and Hot Springs.
FYI … stay away from mosquito repellents containing DEET.
It’s bad for your lungs and liver.
Get a repellent containing a 20% solution of picaridin.
Sawyer Products is my go to, if I have to enter into an area, at night, with standing water.
Those who think DEET is bad might compare it to permethrins used in mosquito foggers. Permethrins are toxic to bees as well as cats.
Every remedy for what ails us has its own price to pay. No free lunch.
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/DEETgen.html#cancer
http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/PermGen.html