Spending More Time Outside During The Pandemic? Scientists Say Beware Of Ticks.
Millions of Americans are under stay-at-home orders as the coronavirus spreads across the country, prompting some to spend more time than usual outdoors during the extended social isolation.
While hiking in the woods can provide a much-needed change of scenery, scientists are urging nature-seekers to take precautions against tick encounters.
Nearly 50% of ticks are infected with Lyme disease or other pathogens that can severely disrupt people’s immune systems, potentially making them even more vulnerable to COVID-19, said Goudarz Molaei, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station’s passive tick surveillance and testing program.
There’s no evidence ticks can carry or transmit the virus that causes COVID-19, Molaei said, but a person who contracts a tick-borne illness and is then exposed to the coronavirus could have an especially difficult time recovering.
“Some of the people who are exposed to the coronavirus are more likely to get sick or die if they have certain other health issues,” said Richard Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York.
“We don’t know if an infection with a tick-borne pathogen is one of those issues, but it could be,” Ostfeld continued. “We should be concerned about the possibility that people will have increased severity of illness if they are also suffering from a tick-borne disease.”
People can encounter ticks year-round in many parts of the U.S., though they are typically most active between April and September. Most Lyme disease cases are reported in June and July, and over 90% of them occur in 15 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Molaei said his lab in Connecticut has received 750 ticks for testing from Dec. 1 to Tuesday ― nearly four times as many as the same time period the previous...
