Washington Post Tick-related emergency room visits are at the highest since 2019, CDC data shows. The Northeast region has seen the most this summer. Michael Raupp is used to pulling bugs off his body. As an entomology professor and author of a blog that introduces readers to a bug a week, the 73-year-old spends a lot of time outdoors conducting field research.
His work takes him into forests, meadows and other patches of greenery in Maryland, and afterward, it’s not unusual for him to find winged or multi-legged creatures hitchhiking on him.
But this year, he has plucked from his skin an unusual amount of one type of pest: ticks.
“I think this year, already, I’ve probably removed a half dozen,” Raupp, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, said on a recent afternoon.