Prognosis
The U.S. Is Expanding Its Hunt for Early Warnings of Covid in Sewage
The samples stink, but the data are good
An employee collects a wastewater sample from the Likins Hall dorm at the University of Arizona, where wastewater monitoring helped thwart a potential outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020.
Photographer: Cheney Orr/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
U.S. public health officials are expanding their monitoring of Covid-19 in sewage, which has become a crucial early warning for surges of new cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week began sharing virus wastewater trends on its public-facing Covid data website. And the agency is in the midst of expanding the number of places from which raw sewage gets monitored for rising or falling waves of disease, adding hundreds of new sites in the coming months.