So far, the US Department of Agriculture has reported more than 30 herds of dairy cows infected with H5N1 influenza across nine states. But there are questions about how large the outbreak might be and whether the US can adequately track it.
To better understand COVID-19's spread during the pandemic, public health officials have expanded wastewater surveillance. These efforts track SARS-CoV-2 levels and health risks among most people, but they miss people who live without shelter, a population particularly vulnerable to severe infection.
To fill this information gap, researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology Letters tested flood-control waterways near unsheltered encampments, finding similar transmission patterns as in the broader community and identifying previously unseen viral mutations.
Over the past month, global COVID-19 cases rose slightly, with a steady drop in deaths from the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest monthly update.
However, the group cautioned about interpreting the data, given that less than half of countries reported their COVID metrics during the latest reporting period, which covers December 11, 2023, to January 7.
The curves on some Covid graphs are looking quite steep, again.
Reported levels of the virus in U.S. wastewater are higher than they have been since the first Omicron wave, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though severe outcomes still remain rarer than in earlier pandemic winters.
