For most of this season I have been telling customers the honest version of the South Florida mosquito story: the dengue outbreak is a Tampa Bay event, and our counties were barely on the board. As of the state's newest surveillance report, that sentence needs an update. Broward County is now on the locally acquired dengue list, and for the first time this year all three of our counties are on it.
What changed this week
Florida's arbovirus surveillance report for September 27 through October 3, 2026 states that 44 cases of locally acquired dengue were reported that week, and that in 2026, 296 cases of locally acquired dengue and 20 mosquito pools have been reported from eight counties (Source: Florida Arbovirus Surveillance Week 39, floridahealth.gov, Sept 27-Oct 3, 2026).
The county table in that report is the part worth reading slowly. Broward: 1. Palm Beach: 1. Miami-Dade: 8. Hillsborough: 259 (Source: same report). Those are locally acquired cases for the entire year, not for the week.
The Florida Department of Health in Broward County issued a mosquito-borne illness advisory on October 5, 2026, and its own notice says the advisory is in response to a confirmed human case of locally-acquired dengue fever (Source: DOH-Broward, broward.floridahealth.gov, Oct 5, 2026).
So Broward went from not appearing on that list at all to appearing on it with one case. That is a real change in status and it is also a small number. Both of those things are true and you should be suspicious of anyone who only tells you one of them.
Alert, advisory, and what the tiers mean here
The same state report lists the status as of October 3, 2026. Broward and Palm Beach are under a mosquito-borne illness advisory. Miami-Dade is under a mosquito-borne illness alert, which is the higher tier (Source: Week 39 report).
Worth noting for anyone who has been tracking this with me: that status block was stuck on an August 29 date stamp for weeks. It is current now. The tiers reflect October conditions, not late summer ones.
The honest scale
Hillsborough County alone accounts for 259 of the state's 296 locally acquired cases. Our three counties combined account for 10. Tampa Bay is where this outbreak lives, and pretending otherwise to sell a service would be the easiest thing in the world and also a lie.
What the Broward case actually tells you is narrower and more useful: a mosquito in Broward County bit someone carrying dengue virus and passed it to someone else. That is local transmission, and it means the vector and the virus are in the same place at the same time here. One case is not an outbreak. It is proof the mechanism works in our zip codes.
The county sprayed over Boca last night
Palm Beach County Mosquito Control conducted aerial spraying beginning a half hour after sunset on Sunday, October 11, 2026, over approximately 265,000 acres of populated areas west of Military Trail, including Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Jupiter, and the Glades communities (Source: Boca Raton Tribune, October 2026). Residents can confirm whether the operation finished by calling the county aerial spray hotline at 561-642-8775.
If you were under that flight path, understand what you got. Aerial adulticide kills mosquitoes flying that night. It leaves no meaningful residual and it does nothing to the eggs sitting dry in the saucer under your potted palm. It is a population knockdown over a huge area, not yard coverage.
What to actually do in October
Walk the property once a week and dump every container holding water. Plant saucers, bromeliad cups, gutters, tarp folds, toys, boat covers, garbage can lids, the tray under the AC unit. Aedes aegypti breeds in containers, not canals, and it does not fly far, so what is biting you came from your yard or your neighbor's.
Repellent timing trips people up. This mosquito bites in daylight, heaviest in early morning and the hour before dusk. The 8 a.m. dog walk counts.
On our side: the In2Care station is a natural-based larval product that uses the mosquito to carry treatment back to the water it breeds in. The barrier treatment is a separate product that kills adults on contact and holds 10 to 17 days of residual, applied as the label directs, with no neonicotinoids. Those are two different tools doing two different jobs, and the barrier product is not a natural one.
Call the office if you want someone to walk the yard with you and point at the containers. That part is free, and most people are surprised by what they have been watering.
Sources are cited inline. Questions about your own property? Call 561-443-3333 or request a free quote.