Are you enjoying a summer with fewer itchy bites? There's a reason for that. Mosquito levels have dropped significantly in Western and Midwest states like Minnesota and North Dakota due to a historic drought, leading to a decrease in mosquito activity.
Mosquito levels are down 50% across Western and Midwest states, including Michigan and Minnesota, with Colorado potentially seeing a 70% decrease this year.
Less standing water means fewer breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
“Coming from out of state, the mosquitoes here are worse than I’ve ever seen them,” Minnesota resident Kahiti Stierley-Nunez, who moved from California four years ago, told The Minneapolis Tribune. “But this year, I haven’t had to put on bug spray at all this whole summer.”
She's not wrong. But while fewer bites mean be nice, the decrease in mosquito numbers does not reduce the risk of contracting viruses like West Nile, which is at a 22-year high in the U.S.
Why is that? Drought conditions can paradoxically increase West Nile virus transmission by concentrating mosquitoes and birds around shrinking water sources, facilitating the spread of the virus.
"When water sources shrink, both mosquitoes and the birds that carry West Nile virus are forced to gather around the same limited puddles, ponds and irrigation ditches," Times of India reported. "That crowding increases the chances of a mosquito biting an infected bird and then passing the virus on to a person."
They added that a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B titled The paradoxical impact of drought on West Nile virus risk: insights from long-term ecological data.
West Nile virus causes severe symptoms such as high fever, coma, tremors, vision loss, paralysis, and brain inflammation. About 32,000 people have been infected by it since it arrived in the U.S. in 1999.
