(This content was created with the help of AI.) Florida officials aren’t just swatting at mosquitoes anymore—they’re treating them as an emergency. Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, has declared a local state of emergency after confirming 134 cases of dengue fever, saying the virus now presents an “immediate and widespread threat” to residents and visitors, per the Guardian.
There’s been at least one fatality, which the AP notes was an elderly woman in Tampa who died in early September. Nearby Pasco and Pinellas counties have followed with their own emergency declarations as health authorities roll out intensified spraying, public education, and planning efforts aimed at containing the disease.
People reports that in Clearwater, located in Pinellas County, officials have even taken to releasing mosquitofish, which chow down on mosquito larvae, into various bodies of water to try to reduce the mosquito population…