Originally Posted by
smorz
Zika is a concern for both males and females. It can be sexually transmitted, so if you plan on having kids it becomes an issue. Its been documented that it can stay in the male's system for months. They don't exactly know the maximum time it will remain.
Of course more people die from malaria, but the issue with Zika is not death, but rather microcephaly in newborns. Having a child with permanent brain defects because of unneeded travel is quite the risk. There is no cure, and it has lifelong consequences.
I personally bid around the trips to Central/South America and Caribbean. I don't bid FL trips mostly because I don't prefer them. I can see how people not planning on having kids may view the situation differently.
I know what the problems are with Zika. I live in Florida. We hear about it almost everyday here. That being said, do you think this is going to stop at the Florida border? It's here. Malaria will be in the not too distant future. Zika might be like the giant Ebola scare of 2015 and die out in a few months. It might not. My guess is that at some point you are going to have to fly into an area that found some mosquitos with Zika.
I guess if the company allows those trips to be dropped without pay it could gain traction, but it will open the Pandora's box of true MED destinations. I have no idea how they could allow people to drop MIA layovers where there have been a handful of Zika cases and force us to fly LOS where there is high malaria and terrorism.