Marlene and Tweets:

You said.... "Only 20% of those bitten will have ANY sign of illness. Less
than 1% of those who get ill will get the severe form of the virus and be
hospitalized; the rest will suffer short-term flu-like symptoms. Less than
25% of those hospitalized will die from it. Although every death is a
tragedy to someone, these numbers are sounding pretty small to me, not a
national epidemic to panic over. But then I have been accused of being cold
and scientific sometimes!

So mainly, I'm worried about the birds and what we can do for them. Am I
right, is the answer "Nothing"?"


As usual, the media is using scare tactics to sell their product. It
would be too much to hope that they calmly address this issue, giving us the
facts without making it sound as though Armageddon is once again upon us.
Remember the anthrax scare?
I get the impression there is nothing we can do to prevent birds dying of
WNV beyond using some form of chemical eradication of the mosquitoes...and I
personally find that scarier than the disease!

Dianna Moore
Ocean Shores, Wa.
dlmoor2 at coastaccess.com