[stupac2]

I'm really worried about the Zika virus and the future of the human race.  It can be transferred by mosquitos and through sexual contact.  As of today, the CDC claimed 1,658 cases in the United States, with all but one through travel-related means, but 4,729 in U. S. Territories, with 4,666 in Puerto Rico.  There are 87 cases in California.  There are 855 pregnant women in the United States and U. S. Territories (433 and 422 respectively) with the Zika virus, 19 of whom have identifiable birth defects associated with the Zika virus.

I don't mean to sound alarmist, but I'm really concerned.

Why does this make you worried about the future of the human race? It's a virus that's among the most benign imaginable as long as you're not pregnant, and the means of beating it back (like, you know, screens on windows and air conditioning) are widely available in the developed world. The mosquitoes that transmit it cover a tiny fraction of the US (and aren't in most of the US), and even if other species can transmit it and it somehow becomes endemic across wide swaths of the US, it won't really ever be a concern to anyone but a tiny minority of people who will be able to take pretty easy precautions against it.

Your comment might make sense if you subbed in some kind of flu or even malaria, but Zika? On any kind of species-wide scale it's just not a problem, even at the olympics. The WHO is way more concerned about regular ole flu that no one gives a shit about because it doesn't have a scary name.

(And this is all ignoring that there's some pretty promising avenues toward complete eradication of vector mosquitoes in development, it's entirely possible that within our lifetimes not only Zika, but Yellow Fever, Chikungunya, West Nile, malaria, etc etc will all be history.)

[stupac2]

I'm really worried about the Zika virus and the future of the human race.  It can be transferred by mosquitos and through sexual contact.  As of today, the CDC claimed 1,658 cases in the United States, with all but one through travel-related means, but 4,729 in U. S. Territories, with 4,666 in Puerto Rico.  There are 87 cases in California.  There are 855 pregnant women in the United States and U. S. Territories (433 and 422 respectively) with the Zika virus, 19 of whom have identifiable birth defects associated with the Zika virus.

I don't mean to sound alarmist, but I'm really concerned.

Why does this make you worried about the future of the human race? It's a virus that's among the most benign imaginable as long as you're not pregnant, and the means of beating it back (like, you know, screens on windows and air conditioning) are widely available in the developed world. The mosquitoes that transmit it cover a tiny fraction of the US (and aren't in most of the US), and even if other species can transmit it and it somehow becomes endemic across wide swaths of the US, it won't really ever be a concern to anyone but a tiny minority of people who will be able to take pretty easy precautions against it.

Your comment might make sense if you subbed in some kind of flu or even malaria, but Zika? On any kind of species-wide scale it's just not a problem, even at the olympics. The WHO is way more concerned about regular ole flu that no one gives a shit about because it doesn't have a scary name.

(And this is all ignoring that there's some pretty promising avenues toward complete eradication of vector mosquitoes in development, it's entirely possible that within our lifetimes not only Zika, but Yellow Fever, Chikungunya, West Nile, malaria, etc etc will all be history.)