COVID-19 is inspiring improvements to surveillance for other common viruses

This week, I have a new story out in Gothamist and WNYCabout norovirus, a nasty stomach bug that appears to be spreading a lot in the U.S. right now. The story shares some NYC-specific norovirus information, but it also talks more broadly about why it’s difficult to find precise data on this virus despite its major implications for public health. Reporting this story led me to reflect on how COVID-19 has revealed cracks in the country’s infrastructure for tracking a lot of common pathogens.

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National numbers, February 26

The national COVID-19 plateau continues. As I’ve been saying for a few weeks now, COVID-19 spread has dropped significantly from its high during the winter holidays, but it has not fallen to the low levels we’ve previously seen this time of year due to a combination of lax precautions and the latest Omicron variant, XBB.1.5.

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New wastewater surveillance report highlights need for expansion, standardization

This week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a major report about the state of wastewater surveillance for infectious diseases in the U.S. The report, written by a committee of top experts (and peer-reviewed before its release), is an extensive description of the promise and the challenges of wastewater testing.

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Looking ahead to the big COVID-19 stories of 2023

As someone who’s been reporting on COVID-19 since the beginning, a new year is a good opportunity to parse out what feels like an eternity of pandemic reporting. So this week, I reflected on the major trends and topics I hope to cover in 2023—both building on my work from prior years and taking it in new directions.

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How official death data underestimate COVID-19’s inequities

In the last week of December, I had a major story published at MuckRock, USA TODAY, and local newsrooms in Arizona, Oregon, and Texas. The story explains that official COVID-19 statistics underestimate the pandemic’s true toll—particularly on people of color, who are more likely to have their deaths inaccurately represented in mortality data.

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