Results tagged “westnile”

On Friday, dozens of birds fell out of the sky and died on a street in the Great Kills section of Staten Island. Residents grew concerned as, the Staten Island Advance reported, birds "flopped and twitched...as they breathed their last" (video here). One resident said the birds were flying "as if they were drunk" before falling to the ground.

The Health Department announced that a 41-year-old Brooklyn woman had tested positive for the West Nile virus. This is the first reported case of West Nile in the city this year. The woman was hospitalized on August 25th, after suffering symptoms like fever, headache, fatigue, weakness and muscle pain.

If you live in Washington Heights, you'll want to stay indoors tonight. The Health Department will be spraying pesticide as a preventive bid against the West Nile virus. The Post reports that the spraying (of Anvil 10+10) will be at Trinity Cemetery between 8PM and 6AM.

Better make sure you've got your insect repellent ready: The Department of Health has found mosquitoes with West Nile virus in Flushing.

The Office of Emergency Management would like to remind you that for the next three days, New York City will be grosser than usual, with the heat index tipping 90 every day. But the professionals at OEM are on the case with such well-researched tips as,"Wear loose-fitting, light-colored clothing" and "Use an air conditioner if you have one." What would we do without our City government?

City officials are wondering why dead birds have been found in Queens outside the Steinway Piano Factory and in a lot on South 4th in Williamsburg. WCBS 2 reported that over the past few days, 20 birds have been found outside Steinway's Long Island City factory. Authorities eading authorities to wonder if they were killed from a pesticide, all died from West Nile, or had flown into the side of the building. The Audobon's hypothesis: "Migrant birds passing through the city are getting confused by the reflection of trees on the factory's windows, and are crashing straight into the building." Which may well be. But that doesn't explain the dead birds in Williamsburg. And according to the WCBS 2 report, residents called 311 to complain about the birds over the weekend, but the FDNY only responded yesterday.

Some study from some university in some UK town, name ending in -ester or -ilshire or something, finds that fans of hip-hop music have more sex than other music fans. 38% of hip-hop fans in the study had had sex with multiple people in the past five years while only 1.5% of country music listeners had had more than one square dance partner. Also (we can see the angry comments now), more than 50% of hip-hop and dance music fans claim to have committed a criminal act in their bass-driven pasts. Other secret habits revealed: a quarter of classical music fans have smoked weed and about a tenth of opera fans dig magic mushrooms. To get involved in the study, check out: www.musicaltastetest.com.

+ City air unsafe for mosquitoes, asthmatics as the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene continues its shock and awe bombardment of the West Nile carrying buggers. Helicopters will be spraying parts of the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island with pesticide through Friday morning. Only one person has been infected with the disease this year compared with 14 last year.

This may turn out to be the most boring weather week of the year. As Gothamist looks out our window we see a few fair weather cumulus over the Upper West Side. Those few clouds may be the most exciting weather we see all week. Clear skies and pleasant temperatures should prevail through Friday. Oh, some clouds may make an appearance on Wednesday, and again on Friday, but they won't be that much more extensive than this morning's lonely mass of suspended water droplets.

Oy, looks like Staten Island is the hot place for the virus set these days. Not only was there a rabid kitten running around the island (not to mention some rabid raccoons) but now the first case of the West Nile virus to be reported in the city this year has cropped up there.

- Finally, napping kittens the size of your hand make for really, really cute videos.

As if we needed another health scare, the city DOH was a buzz yesterday with talk of four meningitis-related deaths in Brooklyn over the past three months. The culprit, a strain of the bacteria meningococcus, is very treatable with antibiotics if caught early, and apparently doesn't discriminate, having put a high school freshman in the hospital and killing Professor X, a black nationalist rapper.

This story is totally eek-inducing. Three people have contracted the West Nile virus through organ donations - and two of them are in comas. The Department of Health says that the donor lived in the Bronx, near a park where there were West Nile mosquitos, and donors are not screened for West Nile. At any rate, the Department of Health says transmission of West Nile through transplantation is rare and only 11 people have tested positive for it this year. Right when Gothamist was getting freaked out (and we still are, believe us) about avian flu, we're reminded about West Nile - damn you, mosquitos, damn you.

- Three New Yorkers have been diagnosed with West Nile Virus; remember: no standing water on your property

Partly cloudyish, high of 81.

In the team competition, two brothers won for their work trying to understand how West Nile is transmitted, after their mother's nagging "Put on long pants or you'll get West Nile." Mark and Jeffrey Schneider of South Windsor, CT were inspired by the movie October Sky where a national science competition is won by unknowns from rural Virginia. Happily, Li and the Schneiders are the recepients of huge, oversized foamcore mounted checks.

The torrential rain we somehow managed through earlier will probably give us a mosquito- and motley-of-other-insects- filled summer. The city is naturally worried about West Nile but at present, there haven't been any cases, though the Health Department is trying to exterminate as many larvae as possible.

The Times reports that one prairie dog "has accounted for more than half the 34" reported cases of monkeypox cases in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin state epidemologist Jeffrey P. Davis says that the one prairie dog "was a super-transmitter if there ever was one. The prairie dog was moved quite a bit from a pet store to a household to one veterinary clinic and then to a second veterinary clinic before it died."

Also, to think that authorities are "chasing down prairie dogs that may have been infected"...

There are reportedly 20 cases of monkeypox, a smallpox like virus though less deadly and infectious, found in the Midwest. The Times reports that "several patients in the American outbreak work for veterinarians or pet stores that sold prairie dogs and Gambian rats." Pet prairie dogs, okay, Gothamist knows what those are, though we're iffy on the idea of having them as pets. But Gambian rats? The article says these rats "grow to the size of small cats, eat pet food as well as fruits, vegetables and cooked meats." Rats the size of small cats. Gothamist thinks Gambian rats are a bad idea or they are in severe need of some rebranding - the "rat" in the name isn't doing anything for them.