Two quick updates about the CDC’s surveillance efforts for COVID-19 and other diseases: The CDC has provided a short-term wastewater surveillance contract to Verily, the biotech company that’s affiliated with Google, so that data collection can continue at about 400 sewage testing sites while a longer-term contract is in dispute. And the CDC is expanding its testing program for international travelers arriving at U.S. airports, in a three-month pilot program for the winter virus season.
Most of the numbers above are exactly copied from last week’s National Numbers post, as the CDC didn’t update its COVID-19 dashboard this week. The new data we do have this week, mainly from wastewater dashboards, suggest that COVID-19 spread is increasing slightly along with other respiratory viruses.
The U.S. is heading into our first winter since the end of the federal public health emergency for COVID-19. Those of us still following COVID-19 trends might need to change which data sources we use to track the disease this winter, and how we think about trends.
After an early-fall lull in COVID-19 transmission, there are now signs that the coronavirus is starting to spread more as we head into winter (or, respiratory virus season). This slight uptick is expected, but could still be prevented if we had better public health measures in place.
Our mid-fall COVID-19 lull continues in the U.S., with major metrics showing plateaus in disease spread nationally. A disruption in wastewater surveillance may make it harder to follow these trends in the coming weeks.
Two weeks ago I wrote an article explaining that the CDC has a new wastewater contract, essentially transferring responsibility for COVID-19 testing at hundreds of wastewater treatment plants across the country from Biobot Analytics to a company called Verily, which is affiliated with Google. In the time since that post, I have seen some other articles and social media posts alleging that, thanks to the contract change, Biobot will no longer be posting any COVID-19 data on their dashboard. This is inaccurate!
COVID-19 data signals point to a continued lull in transmission across the U.S., ahead of likely increases as the weather gets colder. The Northeast is still reporting higher COVID-19 levels than other regions, according to wastewater and test positivity data.
This week, the CDC and life sciences company Verily announced that the agency awarded a five-year wastewater surveillance contract to Verily. The announcement marks a shift in the U.S. sewage monitoring landscape and will impact our public COVID-19 data, with short-term gaps and changing coverage in a couple of sources—but ultimate improvements in the long term.
During the most recent week of data available (September 17-23), the U.S. reported about 19,100 new COVID-19 patients admitted to hospitals, according to the CDC. This amounts to: Additionally, the U.S. reported: COVID-19 spread is on the decline nationally, following a trend from the last couple of weeks. But levels are still very high, and […]
I have a new story up this week at Science News, describing how the field of wastewater surveillance exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic and is now looking toward other public health threats.
