If you live anywhere between Carrollwood and FishHawk Ranch, expect planes overhead after dark from tonight through Friday. It's Tuesday, October 27th, and this is Dengue Fever Watch. Today: Hillsborough's next round of nighttime spraying, a second local case in Seminole County, and a North Port woman whose dengue infection isn't in Sarasota County's local count. Follow the show and the next briefing lands in your feed on its own.
Hillsborough County, in a release Monday:
Mosquito Management crews are increasing treatments by air and ground because the County's mosquito traps in many neighborhoods are showing dengue fever virus activity in the mosquito populations.
Didn't they just do this last week? They did, and this is a second week of the same operation. Contractors will spray Dibrom, an insecticide aimed at adult mosquitoes, from airplanes at 300 feet, between sunset and midnight, Tuesday through Friday, October 27th through 30th. It covers about 225,000 acres, the same scale as the October 20th-to-23rd run we told you about last Wednesday. Which neighborhoods? More than twenty communities, from Town 'N Country and South Tampa to Brandon, Riverview, Apollo Beach and Plant City. Separately, the county's own crews will treat Ybor City and parts of Tampa Heights between 4 and 6 in the morning, either Tuesday or Wednesday. So if I'm in Ybor, that's an early-morning treatment, not the evening planes. And if I want to know when it's my block? The county says residents can sign up for alerts about localized aerial treatments and check an online treatment map. The mosquito office number is 813-635-5400. It also repeats its ask: long sleeves, a repellent with a CDC-recommended ingredient such as DEET or picaridin, and dumping or covering standing water. And the emergency order? As we reported Friday, Hillsborough's runs through Thursday, October 29th. None of today's sources says whether it will be renewed, or whether Pinellas's borrowed helicopter has flown yet.
Christie Zizo, writing for News 6 in Orlando on Monday:
The latest health department report on mosquito-borne illnesses documents 425 locally acquired dengue cases in Florida since the start of the year. That report only runs through Oct. 17 and doesn’t include the Seminole County cases.
Cases, plural. So Seminole has more than the one from last week. Two now. The county health department is reporting a second locally acquired case, meaning a Florida mosquito spread it, not a trip abroad. On Friday we noted that Seminole's emergency management director said a couple more potential cases were being tested. This report doesn't say whether this is one of them. Where in the county, and when did the person get sick? The article doesn't say. The first case was linked to the Winter Springs area. What county officials did tell News 6 is that more than 32,000 acres in Seminole were fogged last month, and some areas got larvicide. So the 425 statewide is already behind. For Seminole, yes. That figure only covers confirmed, locally acquired cases through October 17th. The next weekly state report should show whether both Seminole cases are counted. News 6 also says Orange County has eight local cases, and both Orange and Osceola have been spraying from the air.
Clinton Engelberger, for Suncoast Searchlight, published by WUSF on Friday:
Her case was twice reported to the Florida Department of Health, records shared with Suncoast Searchlight reveal. But according to the agency, Sarasota County has not recorded a single case of dengue fever that was acquired locally this year.
Who is she, and why does she think it was local? Jerri Goodlin, 63, a hospice nurse in North Port. She got sick in September and spent five days in the hospital. She believes mosquitoes bit her while she mowed a neighbor's lawn, about four days before her symptoms began. She also told the health department she'd been at a wedding in Hillsborough County the week before. She says she doesn't remember being bitten there. So there are two possible places, and the state picked one without saying why. It hasn't explained. A spokesperson for DOH-Sarasota, Gerald Huard, said the county has no active dengue transmission and no locally acquired human cases. The department wouldn't say how it decided where she was infected, citing patient privacy. To be clear, nothing made public settles where she was exposed. Her worry is that neighbors see zero and relax. That's her point. Sarasota's mosquito team did treat her property within hours of the report and notified neighbors. University of Florida researcher Eric Caragata said dengue is worth paying attention to but not worth panicking about, and pointed to repellent, long sleeves, screens and emptying standing water.
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On our list for next episode: whether the new state report counts both Seminole cases, what Hillsborough and Pinellas decide when their emergency orders reach October 29th, and any word on Pinellas's helicopter flights. Links to today's reporting are in the show notes. You've been listening to Dengue Fever Watch, from Lantern Podcasts. Stay safe out there.