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Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

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Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#61

Post by clairity »

optimiz3 wrote: post #57
clairity wrote: post #54

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

> why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? Probably because 700k/year is globally, while the US alone has suffered 100k deaths in 3 months.

currently ~350K global deaths for covid, in 6 months, since december.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#62

Post by throwaway894345 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #22
jonshariat wrote: post #12

This is why Verily's https://debug.com/ project is so interesting. The idea is to create modified mosquitoes that can't bite or breed and release them to "breed" with the general populous thus neutralizing them.

Another way we can control mosquitoes is by making sure the native bird populations are healthy. Where I live tree and bank swallows eat tons and tons of mosquitoes and other bugs every year which helps control the population. I wouldn't recommend releasing these birds elsewhere because they may not have any natural predators but surely where there are tons of mosquitoes there are also predators of mosquitoes as well…

Is this true? I recall looking into this and finding that swallows, bats, and other "mosquito predators" don't put a dent in mosquito populations (mosquitoes are numerous and only account for a negligible percentage of these predators' diets).

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#63

Post by thawaway1837 »

clairity wrote: post #54

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

Umm, for one thing because going into lockdown wouldn’t do anything to prevent death by mosquito?

You do know that mosquitoes have wings and can move from place to place without humans right?

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#64

Post by pitaj »

petters wrote: post #48
ahelwer wrote: post #32

I grew up in Manitoba so have a very healthy hatred of mosquitoes - 50 of them once followed me into a car during the https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1120044775024013312

The ecological systems would likely be fine; the mosquitoes responsible for diseases are a minority. But that is beside the point and does not matter. What matters are 700,000 human lives annually. It's tragic really. If we had these diseases in Europe or North America, we would have already done this.

We did already do that. It was called spraying DDT everywhere.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#65

Post by the_af »

clairity wrote: post #54

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

Where I live we're concurrently experiencing, besides COVID19, a dengue fever outbreak. Dengue fever is spread by mosquitoes -- specifically, Aedes Aegypti.

Dengue is way more serious than COVID19. Particularly worrisome, having had dengue makes subsequent reinfections more life-threatening, not less.

There are ways to eradicate the mosquito -- mainly getting rid of small clear water containers near/within your home, such as vases and empty plant pots -- but we still don't do it until it's too late and becomes a problem. A single neighbor who doesn't do this endangers the whole block. And the authorities don't give a fuck. It's infuriating, really.

So to rephrase your question, why don't we do something about it? It's way more actionable than COVID19 (though lockdowns don't work for the reasons others told you). So who knows?

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#66

Post by clairity »

thawaway1837 wrote: post #63
clairity wrote: post #54

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

Umm, for one thing because going into lockdown wouldn’t do anything to prevent death by mosquito? You do know that mosquitoes have wings and can move from place to place without humans right?

you know that the most effective preventative for mosquito bites are mosquito nets, like staying inside, with screens on your windows and doors, right?

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#67

Post by spijdar »

creaghpatr wrote: post #25
Koshkin wrote: post #18

To put this in a perspective, 1 Mosquito 1,000,000 2 Human 475,000 3 Snake 50,000 4 Dog 25,000 5 Tsetse Fly 10,000 6 Assassin Bug 10,000 7 Freshwater Snail 10,000 8 Ascaris Roundworm 2,500 9 Tapeworm 2,000 10 Crocodile 1,000 11 Hippopotamus 500 12 Elephant 100 13 Lion 100 14 Wolf 10 15 Shark 10 https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-animals-that-kill-mo...

I had never heard of Assassin bug but apparently they are all over North America. https://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?... Wonder if those Murder Hornets will make next year's list?

My understanding from (very briefly) reading about the insect family Reduviidae is some species are parasitic and spread deadly pathogens much the same way mosquitoes do. It's not the insects themselves killing people, but diseases like Chagas disease (Triatominae is a subfamily of Reduviidae "Assassin Bug"). [1]

[1] https://www.paho.org/en/topics/chagas-disease

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#68

Post by seph-reed »

epicureanideal wrote: post #41
dmix wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone leaning toward the idea we should exterminate mosquitoes Is this actually a thing?

Yes, I am in favor of exterminating every last mosquito. I’d rather deal with any results than the mosquitos themselves. Also I had a long conversation with a specialist in a company working on this and they convinced me that it wouldn’t actually be a big problem like some say.

Super down for this.

First test it on a small isolated island.

I think the main reason people don't like camping or nature is because of mosquitos and biting ants. This dislike of outdoors converts directly to a lack of environmentalism. I don't know the conversion rate, so who knows how much more we'd care for nature minus mosquitos, but if we're destroying the planet either way, we should at least enjoy some part of life without these parasites.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#69

Post by clairity »

the_af wrote: post #65
clairity wrote: post #54

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

Where I live we're concurrently experiencing, besides COVID19, a dengue fever outbreak. Dengue fever is spread by mosquitoes -- specifically, Aedes Aegypti. Dengue is way more serious than COVID19. Particularly worrisome, having had dengue makes subsequent reinfections more life-threatening, not less. There are ways to eradicate the mosquito -- mainly getting rid of small clear water containers near/within your home,…

yeah, that's the kind of thing that's absolutely infuriating relative to the panic and paranoia we're seeing with this pandemic just because it's novel.

Re: Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)

#70

Post by macintux »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #58
clairity wrote: post #54

700K per year. ok let's let the elephant out of the bag: why haven't we been in lockdown every year until this deadly scourge has been exterminated? and no, it's not that the current pandemic was more uncertain. even by january/february, it was clearly less contagious and deadly than the 1918 flu. we had good bounds on potential trajectory by early march, when many lockdowns were being implemented.

I'm of the impression that in March and perhaps even in April "experts" (whoever they are) thought the US alone could see death tolls in the millions?

Without a lockdown, it’s still possible. Latest estimates are 0.5-1 percent fatality rate, which maps to 2-3 million people here in the US, and if everyone got ill in a short succession, because it is very contagious, the death toll would certainly be higher.

Recent birthday party, 20 people, every single one caught the disease.

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