"J. Del Col" wrote in message
m...
"Ted Byers" wrote in message
...
Sue,

I don't disagree with you that the West Nile virus CAN be deadly. That
is
something I did not, and will not, deny. However, according to your CDC
(an
American institution, not Canadian), in 2002, there were only a little
over
4000 cases of it, and fewer than 300 deaths. And the CDC estimated that
the
risk of dying from West Nile is slightly less than that for the flu
(less
than 1 in a thousand)....

OTOH, if you get it, according to the numbers you cite, the chance of
dying is about 10%--not good odds. (are you sure about those numbers?)
It also can produce debilitating long term effects in people who
survive it.


True enough, but identified cases represent only those who showed symptoms
after having been infected. The only way to know the total number who were
infected is to test for antibodies to the virus. That is another key
statistic: the probability of showing symptoms of disease once one has been
infected. Unfortunately, I don't have data for that statistic.

As for the quality of the data, it comes from the CDC, and so can be trusted
to the extent the CDC can be trusted to do the job right.

I am well aware of the debilitating effects of it on survivors, and I do not
take that lightly. But that does not make it rational to fear it because
infection is so rare. You are much more likely to die from a traffic
accident on the roads, or from heart disease or cancer, or one of any numbr
of others causes. There are a great many other risks that are much more
significant, and we all have only limited resources, WRT both time and
money, and so have to evaluate all of the possible risks that we face in
order to rationally set priorities.

Yes, it does look like the probability of dying is quite high if you have
shown symptoms of disease, but that is why I raised the example of ebola.
For those outbreaks for which there were enough cases to produce an estimate
of mortality rate, the probability of dying from ebola one you get it is
somewhere between 50% and 80%. And yet no one fears ebola. Indeed, it is
not rational to fear it since there have been only 1500 cases or so world
wide since the first reported outbreak decades ago.


OTOH, I think the chance of getting WN from a well maintained SH setup
is vanishingly small.

Given what I know of the natural history of mosquitoes (or those with which
I have some familiarity), I would gues that it is not possible unless the
surface of the water is exposed to the air and stagnant. Is there such a
thing as a semi-hydro setup where these conditions prevail?

Cheers,

Ted