Even though we are sweating through a brutal heat wave, we normally love getting outside during the summer. And that always comes with an unwanted crowd — mosquitoes.
In Michigan, mosquitoes typically come out in late spring and stick around until early fall. So we are right in the middle of biting season.
And they’re not just an annoyance. We know they come with some nasty diseases.
The most common one is West Nile virus. There have been no confirmed cases of it in Michigan this year, but the state has detected it in mosquito populations elsewhere in the state.
The Jamestown Canyon virus is another one the state picked up on in Saginaw, Midland, and Kent counties. But again, no cases and nothing we’re seeing here in the metro.
Dr. Brandon Karmo, a family medicine physician at Henry Ford Health, joined Local 4 Live to talk about why we need to take them so seriously and what we can do to keep them off.
You can watch the full interview in the video at the beginning of this article.