Illinois reports first West Nile virus death of 2025 in Cook County

As summer yields to autumn in Illinois, a Cook County resident in their sixties has died from West Nile virus — the state's first such fatality of 2025 — reminding us that the boundary between seasons offers no immunity from nature's quieter dangers. The virus, carried by common house mosquitoes that feed on infected birds, moves largely unseen through a population, striking hardest at the elderly and the immunocompromised while leaving most carriers unaware they were ever touched. With seventy-nine human cases already surpassing last year's full-season total, public health officials are urgin