Zero across the board

Here's a screen shot of the King County West Nile Virus surveillance report that landed in my mailbox this morning. It's like a no-hitter going into the seventh inning.

Washington state has been pretty lucky with West Nile thus far. We've presumed the virus would arrive here, in humans, sooner or later. Look at the 2007 CDC reporting map:


We totally lucked out (unless you're among the bird or animal cases noted), an island of gray in a sea of orange. Gray is my favorite color. So far this year we're free even of animal, bird, or mosquito cases (in King County, the state has animal/bird/insect cases).

But check out Oregon. Nothing across the state. Good year to be a bird there.

So I guess the next fever I see in clinic (once this luxurious six weeks of vacation is over--next week) is just a fever, or at least not West Nile.