From the Washington Post:
As Zika virus spreads, El Salvador asks women not to get pregnant until 2018Wow, this sounds like scary Children of Men stuff. (Note: Salvadoran public health officials may not be the most trustworthy final authorities on the scientific implications.)By Joshua Partlow January 22 at 7:22 PM
MEXICO CITY — The rapid spread of the Zika virus has prompted Latin American governments to urge women not to get pregnant for up to two years, an extraordinary precaution aimed at avoiding birth defects believed to be linked to the mosquito-borne illness.
What until recently was a seemingly routine public health problem for countries that are home to a certain type of mosquito has morphed into a potentially culture-shaping phenomenon in which the populations of several nations have been asked to delay procreation. The World Health Organization says at least 20 countries or territories in the region, including Barbados and Bolivia, Guadeloupe and Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Panama, have registered transmission of the virus. …
After more than 5,000 suspected Zika cases were reported last year and in the first weeks of 2016, El Salvador on Thursday took the most extreme stance so far: Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Espinoza urged women to refrain from getting pregnant before 2018.
Are there any insecticides that could blast these particular kinds of mosquitoes? DDT, for example? I’m all for maintaining a DDT ban in normal times, but this may not be a normal time.
By the way, Children of Men is a depressing sci-fi book by Baroness P.D. James about a worldwide outbreak of something that causes global sterility. The world is ending with a whimper as people just get older and older.
In 2006 it was made into an action thriller by Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron starring Clive Owen, with amazing tracking shot cinematography by Emanuel Lubezki, about a fascist racist British government violently oppressing vibrant illegal immigrants nobly offering to gift a dying England with their life and youth. It looked cool, was critically acclaimed, and got three Oscar nominations.
Except, Cuaron kept James’ plot in which the sterility curse was global, so the movie version was quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.
But anyway, almost nobody seemed to notice how idiotic the movie version was fundamentally, so that is a telling example of how the 21st Century reflexive solution for any problem is Moar Immigration. Therefore, expect to hear soon why Zika justifies a rush for the U.S. border.
