With the coming of the warmer season, not only people would prefer to remain outdoors – same goes for insects as well. As much as are green areas ideal for lovely picnicking with friends, all across London for instance, are they home to ticks fluttering both people and domestic animals.
This winter the atmospheric conditions in the United Kingdom were well suited to the development of various species of mosquitoes that awaken with the onset of spring. Mosquitoes are known to be carriers of diseases – Zika virus, Malaria, West Nile fever. These concerns, however, have remained in the background due to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus – COVID-19.
Mosquitoes kill about 830,000 people worldwide every year, making them one of the most lethal creatures on Earth.
Four hundred forty thousand of the casualties are from malaria. And ticks don’t take much lower position in terms of infection and danger. They carry many pathogens, with grazing ticks playing a significant role.
Here is a piece of good news. According to the World Health Organization, there is no evidence that mosquitoes, ticks and other insects to transmit the coronavirus.
“Mosquitoes don’t transmit coronavirus,” says Dr Ned Walker, a professor in Microbiology and Ethnology at the University of Michigan.” The coronavirus doesn’t infect mosquitoes at all. It can’t develop mosquito-borne infection and therefore can’t participate in this type of transmission cycle.”
The novel coronavirus is a respiratory disease that is spread mainly by droplets generated by coughing or sneezing by an infected person or by nasal secretion, being the reason for that. The latter also applies to other viruses of the same group. “SARS and MERS, which are also coronaviruses, are not mosquito-borne,” Walker explains, adding that people shouldn’t ignore precaution against other mosquito-borne diseases. These diseases take far more casualties than the coronavirus. So instead of worrying about small pests, it is best to follow the temporary measures against COVID-19.
And while people spend more time at home, many worry about bed bugs. These small itchy, bite-causing flushes are unrelated to COVID-19 and carry no risk of infection. In fact, there are no evidence bed bugs are transmitting any diseases.
The spring season also poses a boom in allergic reactions. It is essential to distinguish the symptoms of COVID-19 from those of seasonal allergies. During the pandemic, many people panic and confuse the symptoms, even if they are used to personal experience and recognize their own seasonal allergies. Allergy is an immunological process that causes most commonly runny nose, watery eyes, dry throat, sneezing and, in rare cases, pain in the body. With COVID-19, we have direct multiplication of the virus in the lung cells and, pure empirically, and there should be no intervention between this new virus and multiform allergies, such as hay fever and pollen asthma.
Taking the best of care in pest control will continue when it comes to public or animal health, such as zoos, subject to many measures introduced to avoid contamination. Fighting a pandemic is also a challenge for these people battling pests. They continue to work hard and manifest that pest control is just as important as the worldwide fight against the novel coronavirus, now being observed.