[HN Gopher] Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)
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Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)
Author : ddtaylor
Score : 50 points
Date : 2022-05-30 21:20 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.isglobal.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.isglobal.org)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but the link is in Spanish and you can change
| it at the top. Or this should be the English link.
| https://www.isglobal.org/en/-/mosquito-el-animal-mas-letal-d...
| jannes wrote:
| It appears to be based on this blog post by Bill Gates from
| 2014 (if you want to read the original):
|
| https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Most-Lethal-Animal-Mosquit...
| henearkr wrote:
| It's not mosquitoes per se, but the plasmodia they carry, that
| kill people.
|
| So, if we could design a cure for mosquitoes, that would be
| really a good thing for both humans and nature.
|
| Maybe similar to what we already do with wolbachia to cure
| mosquitoes of arboviruses such as dengue or zika.
| Victerius wrote:
| How there hasn't been a horror movie about mosquitoes is beyond
| me.
|
| Jaws has made almost everyone afraid of sharks. Yet, in the last
| century, there have been only 1,000 recorded deadly shark
| attacks. Mosquitoes kill between 1,500 and 2,000 people _every
| day_. Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/chart-of-
| the-day-mosq...
|
| On a more scientific note, it is my firm belief that the benefits
| of exterminating all species of mosquitoes on the globe far
| outweigh the consequences on the food chain. If I had Bill Gates
| money, this is one of the projects I would work on.
| wrs wrote:
| The Gates foundation has granted billions of dollars for
| malaria research including mosquito control. And Bill himself
| released some (possibly imaginary) mosquitoes into the TED
| audience to make this point, which was pretty hilarious.
| "There's no reason only poor people should have the
| experience," he said.
| car_analogy wrote:
| > Jaws has made almost everyone afraid of sharks. Yet, in the
| last century, there have been only 1,000 recorded deadly shark
| attacks.
|
| Ghosts and zombies have claimed even fewer lives. Meanwhile, no
| horror movies are about cancer or heart disease.
| wincy wrote:
| The Mist does a pretty good job of making mosquitos terrifying.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Same reason we have horror movies about nuclear plant
| accidents, but none about coal plants that emit more pollution
| and kill more people.
|
| Mosquitoes aren't just deadly, they're _boring_ , and that's an
| even worse sin.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| Don't forget heart disease.
|
| I can imagine the movie now. Day after day, year after year,
| people making bad health choices.
|
| How exciting.
| bricemo wrote:
| My theory is it's because people respond emotionally to drama
| but not numbers. A shark attack, a plane crash, and an
| explosion are all much more dramatic but less deadly. What
| would the dramatic terror scene be? Someone swiping away a
| mosquito? Very boring. So that's not what gets made into
| movies.
|
| Secondly, the Gates Foundation does a TON of work with
| mosquitos and protective nets! They have saved tens of millions
| of lives. Whenever I have some money to donate and do research
| on what is the most effective use of each dollar, mosquito nets
| rise to the top.
| nataz wrote:
| I present to you 1994's Mosquito
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_(film)
| bombcar wrote:
| Don't forget '93s Skeeter
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0108154/
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I enjoyed Mansquito:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430334/
| chewz wrote:
| 96 percent of deaths are in Africa and 80 percent of deaths in
| Africa are children below 5 years old..
|
| I do not want to be cynical but that statistic might explain
| inaction...
|
| https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| If you are reasonably healthy, reasonably young, and reasonably
| well-off, you'll most probably not die from any mosquito-
| transmitted disease. And most people think that they belong to
| that group. None of the above will protect you from a shark
| once it found you.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| To add, sharks are literal scary freaks...in pictures, not to
| talk of seeing such a beast in real life.
|
| On the other hand, I've killed more mosquitoes than I care to
| remember.
| jefftk wrote:
| Even in that group, you're still probably more likely to die
| by mosquito then shark?
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| I guess it depends on your Bayesian updating model.
| shironandon wrote:
| world population is 7,950,593,684 and rising..
|
| source: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
|
| So if mother nature really plans to curb our numbers mosquitos
| need to try a bit harder.
| kzrdude wrote:
| The same can be said about covid
| Victerius wrote:
| As someone who also believes that human overpopulation is the
| source of many of our problems, including climate change, I
| could not wish for the mass death of other human beings. Low
| birth rates, economic pressures, and increased access to birth
| control and education for women are going to take care of the
| issue.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Malaria used to routinely kill millions every year. Antimalaria
| programs have made a lot of progress, but a lot remains to be
| done, for sure.
| [deleted]
| rossdavidh wrote:
| "humans by the way are second behind the mosquito, causing
| 475,000 deaths every year..."
|
| Depending on your background, you are either amazed that we are
| the second-biggest threat to ourselves because it's so self-
| destructive, or because you were convinced we had to be our own
| worst enemy.
| rdubz wrote:
| "Each year, 1.35 million people are killed on roadways around
| the world."
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index...
|
| Seems to me that traffic deaths are "caused by" humans... not
| totally surprised they have decided those don't count, but I
| feel that that's wrong.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Mosquitoes kill more than 700k people every year (2017)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23351643 - May 2020 (392
| comments)
| ffhhj wrote:
| Mosquitoes are amazing biological drones, will find a victim by
| breath and skin smell (ie. toes), will conceal on dark surfaces
| from a distance so they have a space model of their victim's
| location, they also search for holes in clothing and bite thru it
| if possible. If they get too full of blood and heavy will walk to
| a safe location, will dodge attacks from larger animals, and
| begin a erratic flight pattern and free-falls to get lost. Also
| they are born with enough energy to fly a considerable distance.
| csdvrx wrote:
| Yet due to the precautionary principle, we will not eradicate
| them as a species, since it might cause some human death.
|
| It seems illogical to me that almost 1 million dead for sure is
| preferable to a low percentage risk of a few thousand that might
| die say due to chemical pollution from the bugspray selected:
| even at a very conservative 1% risk, eradicating mosquitoes can't
| cause 100 million death -- and that's only counting 1 year, while
| we should use a sum over 10 years, but even then with a 5%
| discount rate for uncertainty it still doesn't make sense to
| prefer inaction.
|
| I believe it's a case of status-quo bias.
| svnt wrote:
| You should look into the DDT effort and the consequences of it.
| You are grossly oversimplifying and making it sound like
| everyone is just sitting around leaning on "the precautionary
| principle."
| verisimi wrote:
| Gah!
|
| Quick! Lets's shut down the economy (except for big corporations)
| and make everyone wear bee keeper's clothes if they have to go
| out!!
| sonicggg wrote:
| This is incorrect. Mosquitoes do not kill anyone, but rather the
| pathogens they carry. They are just the vector.
|
| If I have Covid-19, I pass it to you, and you die, does it mean I
| killed you?
| moron4hire wrote:
| This is the sort of technically correct that functionally
| doesn't help anyone, like arguing "guns don't kill people,
| bullets do".
|
| If you intentionally broke quarantine, knowing you were sick,
| knowing you could get other people such, yes, you killed that
| person. That is not controversial.
| dijit wrote:
| > If I have Covid-19, I pass it to you, and you die, does it
| mean I killed you?
|
| if you did it intentionally; yes.
|
| Relevant/related topic (though about another transmissible
| disease):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_transmission_of_HIV
| WithinReason wrote:
| "In the 20th century alone, malaria claimed between 150 million
| and 300 million lives, accounting for 2 to 5 percent of all
| deaths."
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK215638/
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