As you may recall, the Zika virus made big headlines back in January and February when the Brazilian government blamed Zika-carrying mosquitoes for an uptick in reports of microcephaly,^1,2 a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads.

Like many other nations, the U.S. overreacted to the news by increasing states' mosquito eradication efforts.³ Some early models estimated that 200 million Americans, about 60 percent of the U.S. population, would become infected with Zika this summer⁴ — estimates that were clearly vastly overblown.

Sounds just like President Bush who 11 years ago claimed that over 200 million would not only get infected with Bird Flu but would actually die from it. They must have figured most people forgot about this and it was time for another scare to sell more chemicals and vaccines.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics⁵ reveal we've come nowhere near such numbers.

The two states with the highest rates of laboratory-confirmed Zika infections, New York and Florida, have had 625 and 507 cases respectively so far. New York accounts for 23 percent of all U.S. cases; Florida accounts for 19 percent of the total.

It's worth noting though that the vast majority of all Zika cases in the U.S. occurred during travel elsewhere. Florida alone had 35 cases of locally acquired infections. All other states report zero locally-acquired cases.

Among the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico was worst beset, with 13,791 locally-acquired cases as of August 31, 2016. The U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa report 221 and 47 locally-acquired cases respectively.