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Dengue is a serious health threat in Singapore. Fogging (1) is pretty common. Now, the Singapore government says fogging should be used judiciously, not routin
by latch 5y ago
Dengue is a serious health threat in Singapore. Fogging (1) is pretty common.
Now, the Singapore government says fogging should be used judiciously, not routinely. But, that doesn't seem to be the case. Many condos will fog once a week, year-round. Supposedly all operations must be submitted in the an "E-fogging Submission System", but as far as I can tell, there's no visibility into this.
Singapore has also recently declared a "climate change emergency", and I'd consider biodiversity, at the very least, a part of that.
My point is that: if the Singapore Government is unable or unwilling to manage this with a sense of urgency (or "emergency"), then I'm not generally hopeful.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogging_(insect_control) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogging_(insect_control)
- refurb 5y agoDengue fever is a serious disease and it’s not rare in Singapore, there were 40,000+ cases in 2020 which is pretty high for a population of 5M. If they stopped their mosquito control efforts it would be disastrous for human health.
- bvrlt 5y agoWouldn't a healthier ecosystem better handle mosquitoes, though? Predators of mosquitoes are bats, birds, fishes, frogs…
- Mengkudulangsat 5y agoA healthy ecosystem in Singapore will be chock-full of mosquitoes and no humans. The island started out as a swamp.
- dylan604 5y agoSometimes I think mother nature just looks at people shaking her head quoting the line from Last Crusade, "you chose poorly" on selecting where to live.
- mrpopo 5y agoAnd yet 5 million humans swarmed in and Singapore is among the highest nominal GDP countries in the world. Shows that there's little hope bringing balance between humanity and other species in the current economic system.
- refurb 5y agoWell it wasn't 5M until recently. And one could argue that putting 5M people into a tiny island is being efficient with space, leaving vast swaths of Malaysia untouched (where it wouldn't be if Singapore wasn't so dense).
- Clewza313 5y agoFun fact: Singapore's equivalent to Disneyland, the island of Sentosa (home to Universal Studios etc), used to be called "Pulau Blakang Mati", or "Island of Death from Behind", because of its incredible malaria rates.
- refurb 5y agoWhat makes you think a "healthy" ecosystem isn't deadly for humans? I mean, malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever are all natural parts of the ecosystem.
- jbotz 5y agoAnd, ironically, other insects (for example, dragonflies) which are also killed by the fogging. What's more, the predatory insects usually have a much longer life-cycle, so after a fogging the mosquitos will come back long before their predators. Thus, once you start fogging, you have to keep doing it or you'll end up with more mosquitos than before. I've actually seen this happen... ok, my observation is purely anecdotal and has no scientific validity, but the effect I observed was pretty dramatic. Where I live in South America dengue is also endemic, and during some particularly bad Dengue outbreaks a few years ago the city government did some extensive one-shot fogging. Immediately afterward there were practically no mosquitos at all for a few weeks and reduced numbers for some months. But thereafter for at least 6 months to a year everybody complained that the mosquitos were worse than ever (mostly without making any connection to the insecticide fogging, they just complained the way people complain about the weather).
- thatcat 5y agoThere are alternatives, like the release of genetically engineered male mosquitos.
- mixologic 5y agoThat still remains to be seen, right? Wasn't the first release of gmo mosquitos only recently in Florida?
- thatcat 5y agoNo, there were several earlier trials. I think there were issues in scaling up the mosquito modification process.
- londons_explore 5y agoThere is a very scalable process. You breed mosquitoes, about half of which have the gene you're after (so the population isn't infertile). You have machines that can sort them very quickly, and you only release to the wild the infertile male ones. I made a sorting machine that can sort 10 larvae per second - it's all just computer vision looking at their microscopic balls!
- Workaccount2 5y agoReach out to Tom Scott (I'm serious, he is very responsive to e-mails) and he'll probably make a video about this, especially if you are in the UK like your name suggests. I know I would love to see it.
- thatcat 5y agoSick, thanks for the process details. Are there plans for larger releases? if not, do you know what is preventing that from moving forward?
- Clewza313 5y agoSingapore has been trialing as well that since 2016. It's safe to say they haven't solved the problem yet. https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/nea-release-wolbachia-infected-males-mosquito-control-experiment https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/nea-release-wolbachia-...
- mssundaram 5y agoFalse dichotomy
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]