Last week we started to hear about this scary Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) in the news.

There have been an increasing number of cases in Michigan and elsewhere – and several have been fatal.

These sorts of news headlines can have a sensationalism to them that can get people pretty worked up.

Schools might cancel evening events and start spraying chemicals all over the place.

These responses might be appropriate. Certainly, if there is some epidemic upon us, then we should be as proactive as possible.

But I think it is also important to develop the discipline to pause before we get too excited and try to assess what’s really going on in context.

As I was trying to learn about this myself, I was glad to find a posting on the michigan.gov site which is quite helpful.

For example, yes, Michigan has had more cases of EEE lately than usual. In fact, this year we’ve had the same number of cases that we previously had from 2009-2018 combined! That does sound terrible.

But, it’s still only 7 cases.

Yes, it’s definitely worth paying attention to, but it’s also nice that we’re not talking about 7000 cases.

Additionally, it’s a bit comforting to note that of those who have been infected only 4-5% will actually develop illness or symptoms.

And it’s also even more encouraging that of those who have illness or symptoms less than 1% develop severe or fatal illness.

So, in context, even with the increase in cases that we have seen this year, it is still EXTRAORDINARILY UNLIKELY for you or me to die from EEE this year.

With things as they are at present, you’re far more likely to die from the flu or a car accident or from choking on a grape or something.

Of course, we need to keep an eye on this and try to prevent mosquito bites like we always have. But I don’t think we need to go too bonkers at the moment.

I’ll post on this again if things seem to be changing.

Also, since we’re talking about mosquitoes, you might be interested in a previous post: What Really Attracts Mosquitoes?