Pinellas Attacked Tires in Mosquito Fight

Dengue Is Surging Across Tampa Bay — So Why Are Pinellas Numbers So Low?

Something pretty strange is happening with dengue around Tampa Bay.

Through Aug. 29, Florida has reported 73 locally acquired dengue cases this year.

But look at the Bay Area breakdown:

Hillsborough County: 59

Pinellas County: 5

Pasco County: 1

That's a HUGE difference between two counties separated by a bridge.

So what's Pinellas doing differently?

861 Tires Disappeared Before Mosquito Season

One thing caught our attention.

Back in April — months before the current dengue surge — Pinellas County held a countywide free tire collection event specifically intended, in part, to reduce mosquito-borne illnesses.

Residents dropped off 861 old tires.

And Pinellas did the same thing the previous spring, collecting 1,082 tires.

That's 1,943 old tires removed in two years.

Why does that matter?

Because an old tire sitting outside is basically a mosquito nursery. It collects rainwater and provides exactly the kind of small, stagnant-water environment mosquitoes love.

According to Pinellas County, a single scrap tire can potentially produce thousands of mosquitoes over one season.

But Hillsborough Collects Tires, Too

Here's an important part of the story.

Hillsborough isn't simply leaving old tires lying around.

County residents can dispose of tires throughout the year at Hillsborough's Community Collection Centers, and tires are also collected during some neighborhood cleanup events.

What we haven't found recently is a Hillsborough event quite like Pinellas' countywide spring tire roundup specifically promoted as a mosquito-prevention effort. The most recent dedicated mosquito-focused Hillsborough tire event we found was back in 2016.

That doesn't mean Pinellas' tire event explains the massive 5-to-59 dengue gap.

Far from it.

Pinellas Has Been Hitting Mosquitoes From Several Directions

Once mosquito-borne virus activity increased this summer, Pinellas ramped things up even further.

The County has used aerial larviciding, truck fogging, increased mosquito surveillance, localized treatments and property inspections in areas of concern.

That's especially important with dengue because the mosquitoes capable of spreading it can breed around homes in surprisingly small amounts of standing water.

Buckets. Flowerpots. Toys. Gutters.

And, yep, old tires.

So Is Pinellas Doing Something Right?

Possibly. But it's way too early to give the tire collection — or mosquito control in general — all the credit.

Dengue outbreaks can be heavily influenced by where the virus is first introduced, mosquito populations, weather, travel and human movement.

Hillsborough has an extensive mosquito-control operation of its own.

Still, the numbers are impossible not to notice:

Hillsborough: 59.

Pinellas: 5.

And before this outbreak took off, Pinellas had already removed hundreds of potential mosquito breeding sites this spring — and nearly 2,000 tires over the past two years.

Did that help?

We don't know.

But with dengue spreading around Tampa Bay, 861 fewer water-filled tires sitting around Pinellas County suddenly sounds like a pretty damn good investment.