Andrew Week 8: Mosquitoes

    What do you think is the deadliest animal in the world? Would you say it's a vicious hunter such as a lion? Would you say it's a large behemoth such as the elephant or rhinoceros? While these are great guesses, they are not correct. The "winner," if you can even call it that, is the mosquito. This small creature about 0.2 inches long kills more people every year than the entire population of Denver, Colorado. According to Pfizer, about 725,000 people every single year die from mosquito-related diseases.

    The reason why I bring this up is because we take all of our issues for granted. What I mean by this is how much we complain about mosquito bites. According to the insect repellent company Proven Repellent, the State of Florida is the worst state for mosquitoes in the United States. However, do you know how many people die in the United States every year? The answer is 165, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). This means that the United States of America contributes roughly 0.02 percent of the world's deaths from mosquito-born diseases. Now, of course, every death in the world is tragic. Of course, mosquito bites are very annoying. However, we are very lucky. Us Americans (in general) don't have to worry about contracting the zika or malaria viruses while living in the United States. For people who live in South America and Africa respectively, they have to worry about these life-threatening illnesses. So, my point is that: despite the nuisance that mosquito bites may cause, we can be thankful that we don't have to worry about certain things, especially death by mosquitoes.

https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/mosquito_as_deadly_menace#:~:text=The%20Telegraph%20called%20mosquitoes%20%E2%80%9Cfar,for%20600%2C000%20of%20that%20number.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/denvercitycolorado,denvercountycolorado/PST045221

https://www.vdci.net/blog/mosquito-borne-disease-2021/

https://provenrepellent.com/the-worst-cities-and-states-for-mosquitoes-in-the-u-s/