Much of the country is sizzling under record heat, but Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist in Houston, is heading out for his early morning walks as covered up as possible in a t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a hat, sweatpants, socks and sneakers.
It’s not the heat he worries about so much as the mosquitoes.
“My neighbors look at me like I’m absolutely nuts the way I’m dressed in this hot weather, but I don’t want to get what Tony got, which is pretty severe illness if you’re over 65 from West Nile,” said Hotez, director of the Center of Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital.
“Tony” is Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who wrote about being “the sickest I’ve ever been” after he was infected with West Nile by a mosquito in his backyard in 2024.
Hotez has good reason for caution. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation is seeing the earliest start to West Nile virus season in more than two decades.
