I don't want to minimize the importance of anybody's death, but why do we overreact so much when a disease is exotic? The county's health commissioner says we should not panic over mosquito-borne illnesses, but on the other hand:
“We will be working with the Allen County Health Department proactively to help promote the importance of spraying with insect repellent day and night to try to prevent such cases as Christopher's,” the family said in a statement.
We have an editorial brief in today saying, yes, it's smart to wear mosquito repellent. But I wonder. This preventive -- spraying yourself with repellent every time you go outside -- is for something only 70 to 75 Americans get each year, less than 1 percent of that number dying. The risk is so small it can barely be calculated. If we took that cautious an approach to every risk, nobody would even get out of bed in the morning.
