Joanne Williams
Editor

(Courtesy photo – Even when the cleaning supplies are safer, use gloves and other protective clothing to protect yourself and your clothing.)

Remember when we used to track Santa’s progress on Christmas Eve or even the first pumpkin-spice reference.

Now, we can also benefit from the talents of 19-year-old Nathan Burnett who has founded and developed TickZone.app, which can track tick numbers in almost 40 states, including Michigan.

For Burnett, who lives in Massachusetts, this project is personal. His brother was diagnosed with Lyme disease and while his brother was diagnosed and treated early, others are not so lucky.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) “tick-bite ER (emergency room) visits are currently at their highest levels for this point in the year since at least 2017.”

According to publicityforgood, “In Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, 137 out of every 100,000 emergency department visits in April were related to tick bites, according to recent reporting on CDC data.”

The CDC has also reported that “Approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease annually… (and) An estimated 31 million Americans are bitten by ticks every year.

Burnett’s free site, TickZone updates tick risks every morning.

His statistics show that “Eaton County has a CDC Lyme rate of 11 cases per 100,000 people a year, among the highest in the country: it ranks in the top 19 percent of U.S. counties for reported Lyme disease.”

At the summer peak, Burnett said “modeled tick risk across the county topped out in Dimondale, and the spread between towns comes down to habitat: how wooded each town is and how broken up that forest is.”

Readers can look up their own town’s tick risk in seconds at https://tickzone.app/location/michigan/eaton-county.

Burnett has two cautions: He said, “This is an exposure model, not an epidemiological forecast: it estimates where encounters are likely, not where infections will occur. And the seasonal curves are heuristics built from CDC and state health department tick activity calendars, not fitted against case outcomes.”

Burnett looks at a number of variables, from habitat to CDC disease incidence reports to season and weather, which includes temperature and humidity. 

When Burnett looks at the Eaton County numbers, he notes that each page moves a little with the weather, but that “Eaton is a lower-risk county overall. No area reaches the High Band. The story is the internal spread: the wooded north and the river corridor near Dimondale run about two and a half times the risk of the open farmland in the southwest. Dimondale sits clearly on top at 45; Roxand Township is lowest at 19.”

He said that a few names repeat because the village or city and its surrounding township are scored separately. I have labeled each so the list does not read as a duplicate:

1 Dimondale Moderate 45

2 Olivet Moderate 40

3 Eaton Rapids (city) Moderate 37

4 Bellevue (village) Moderate 37

5 Windsor Township Low 32

6 Bellevue Township Low 31

7 Delta Township Low 31

8 Vermontville (village) Low 31

9 Grand Ledge Low 30

10 Hamlin Township Low 29

11 Eaton Rapids Township Low 29

12 Eaton Township Low 28

13 Charlotte Low 28

14 Vermontville Township Low 27

15 Walton Township Low 27

16 Kalamo Township Low 27

17 Benton Township Low 25

18 Potterville Low 25

19 Chester Township Low 24

20 Brookfield Township Low 24

21 Carmel Township Low 24

22 Mulliken Low 22

23 Sunfield Township Low 22

24 Oneida Township Low 22

25 Sunfield (village) Low 22

26 Roxand Township Low 19

There are ways to lessen risks from diseases spread by ticks, according to Kurt Avery, founder of Sawyer, an industry leader in outdoor gear and protection products, located in Florida.

Sawyer’s tick-prevention guidance includes:

– Layer up and check often. Wear long sleeves and pants, tuck pants into socks, and do quick checks during outdoor breaks. After coming inside, a hot shower and full body scan catches ticks before they attach.

– Know what to do if a tick attaches. Use fine-tipped tweezers, pull steadily upward, clean the site, and save the tick. Monitor for fever, rash, or joint pain in the weeks following a bite.

– Protect pets too. Pet owners are nearly twice as likely to find ticks on themselves as those without pets. Check dogs after every outing. 

Sawyer added that “Ticks cannot fly or jump. They ‘quest’” at the tips of tall grasses and brush, extending their front legs to latch onto passing hosts. 

Staying on marked trails and away from leaf litter dramatically cuts exposure. In yards, short grass and wood chip