Ronan Kelly
Retired 2020
Chronicle of a Death Foretold: Human Sentinels for Disease Outbreaks
March 23, 2012 by bodyhorrors
The bodies of dead crows were found littered through back yards, overgrown meadows, and public parks. We like to attach meanings to events, to craft symbols out of the mysterious and unknown. Birds, in particular, are favorite auguries of ours. These mass crow die-offs were an ugly, sinister sign ? what could this mean, mass deaths of creatures customarily seen as living omens of death and the plague?
Unusual as it is, dead animals dropping from the sky isn?t uncommon. But the crows were different. In the summer of 1999, the massive die-off of Corvus brachyrhynchos heralded the entry of West Nile Virus (WNV) into the northeastern United States and its ensuing epidemic. Shortly after reports of clusters of dead crows crept into local health departments, news of a curious encephalitis sending many people to the emergency rooms in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut started popping up.
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http://bodyhorrors.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/humansentinels/
March 23, 2012 by bodyhorrors
The bodies of dead crows were found littered through back yards, overgrown meadows, and public parks. We like to attach meanings to events, to craft symbols out of the mysterious and unknown. Birds, in particular, are favorite auguries of ours. These mass crow die-offs were an ugly, sinister sign ? what could this mean, mass deaths of creatures customarily seen as living omens of death and the plague?
Unusual as it is, dead animals dropping from the sky isn?t uncommon. But the crows were different. In the summer of 1999, the massive die-off of Corvus brachyrhynchos heralded the entry of West Nile Virus (WNV) into the northeastern United States and its ensuing epidemic. Shortly after reports of clusters of dead crows crept into local health departments, news of a curious encephalitis sending many people to the emergency rooms in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut started popping up.
...
http://bodyhorrors.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/humansentinels/