Foreclosure Epidemics-West Nile Virus Tracks Housing Crisis

[babylonsister]

Foreclosure Epidemics
West Nile Virus Tracks Housing Crisis
By Arthur Allen 10/27/08 5:41 PM


Wikimedia Commons


Subprime mortgages have ruined banks and insurance companies and brought the global economy to its knees. Now it looks like they’re also causing the spread of deadly West Nile disease.

In a weird new wrinkle in the story of the exploding mortgage crisis, the housing market in Bakersfield, Calif., was tied to a 276 percent increase in the number of West Nile virus cases, according to the November issue of the scientific journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases.

It’s easy to find correlations between seemingly unrelated events; epidemiological journals are full of stuff like this which doesn’t mean a thing. For example, as ice cream consumption increases, so do drownings. But it’s not because ice cream causes drowning.

In this case, though, the cause-and-effect link is pretty clear. Delinquent mortgages in Bakersfield and the surrounding community caused people to abandon their houses, and mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus bred in their untended swimming pools. The resulting outbreak is a epidemiologists’ textbook case of the unintended consequences of economic turmoil. It’s not the first such example, and undoubtedly won’t be the last before the crisis ends.

“We’ve had problems with West Nile in California since 2004, but in 2007 the housing market really went south and it resulted in a lot of neglected swimming pools,” said lead author William K. Reisen, an entomologist at the University of California, Davis. “They’ve always had problems with homeowner neglect of pools. But all of a sudden, it went through the roof.”

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http://washingtonindependent.com/15183/foreclosure-epidemics

[Mojorabbit]

1. What a great photograph!

What a sad article. Thanks for posting it.

[slackmaster]

2. The city of Chula Vista, CA did something about this

They passed an ordinance that imposes fines for property owners who leave swimming pools filled and unattended. I believe the city will actually put mosquito fish in the pools, and bill the property owner.