And yeah, people absolutely do die from those, and even if they don't, they are horrible diseases that can produce long-term health effects.
The case fatality rate for yellow fever is 15-50% (I'm guessing strongly dependent on whether the victim has access to modern hospitalization).
https://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/yellowfev/CSR...
But that shouldn't really matter. We should fight for a system where obviously-good work can be done even if NIMBYs don't directly benefit from the work. If we're forced into we're forced into talking about how to placate/bribe Florida residents, then we've already lost.
The submitted article mentions Zika in the first paragraph. So reducing Zika cases spread by mosquitos is one potential benefit.
There are only four species of mosquito that bite humans. They are a tiny part of the food chain, and would be completely replaced by other food sources.
It's also not the first time humans have successfully made this kind of intervention.
Here's an article from 2016 about the same thing (it even mentions Oxitec): https://slate.com/technology/2016/01/zika-carrying-mosquitoe...
(I believe it was posted to HN a while back, but the article stuck with me as we don't dare enjoy the outdoors here for fear of our child getting Eastern Equine Encephalitis: https://www.cdc.gov/easternequineencephalitis/index.html )
I might be missing something..there are people dying of malaria in Florida?
Or you're saying that doing the test in Florida will help to get this technology to places where malaria is common?
Put another way, are there in potential benefits for the people living in the testing sites?