Lyme Disease Season Is Here. These Are Tips on How to Avoid It. (Published 2020)
- ️Wed May 27 2020
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The basic symptoms mirror Covid-19, and that’s a worry nobody needs. Plus, a serious illness like Lyme could put you at greater risk from Covid.
May 27, 2020
As if we all needed another health concern, Lyme disease season has arrived.
A walk in the woods might be an appealing way to relieve stress from the coronavirus lockdown, but it comes with an underappreciated risk: Ticks that carry Lyme and other illnesses.
Some of the basic symptoms of a Lyme infection — fever, malaise, fatigue — can resemble Covid-19. That’s a worry nobody needs. In addition, contracting a serious illness like Lyme could put you at greater risk from Covid.
“We already know people with underlying conditions are more vulnerable for complications with coronavirus,” said Shannon L. Delaney, a neuropsychiatrist and director of child and adolescent evaluation at Columbia University’s Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center. “Certainly, people with tick-borne illness fall into that category.”
Fortunately, you don’t have to skip that walk in the forest. Understanding Lyme disease can help you to minimize your risk.
Where? Lyme disease is most prevalent on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, from Virginia to Maine, and from the western reaches of New York and Pennsylvania to the East Coast and into Atlantic Canada. It’s also found in the Upper Midwest, primarily in Wisconsin and Minnesota. But its range is expanding. “Now it’s spreading into Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and the southern part of Midwestern Canada as well,” said Richard S. Ostfeld, a disease ecologist and tick specialist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.
Cases are also found in states outside these hot spots, including in California, Texas and Florida, but numbers there remain comparatively low.