If you feel like everyone has been getting sick lately, you're not alone. The U.S. is actually in the midst of a summer COVID surge. While we aren't experiencing the same spike that we saw in the winter, data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows an uptick in both test positivity and emergency room visits. In addition, COVID levels in wastewater are "very high" in almost two dozen states, according to the latest CDC data.
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Wastewater is tested to detect traces of infectious disease, providing an "early warning" that infection levels could be increasing or decreasing in certain areas, the CDC explains.
Per an interactive map, viral activity levels of SARS-COV-2 are currently "very high" in 21 states, many of which are on the West Coast. As of July 18, states with the highest viral activity levels include California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Texas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Florida, North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Alaska, and Hawaii.
There are also 14 states with high levels and 12 states with moderate levels, while only one state—New York—has low levels. North Dakota has insufficient data to determine viral activity.
"Nationally, wastewater data has been showing increasing SARS-CoV-2 wastewater viral activity levels for the past few weeks," CDC spokesperson Katie Fowlie said in a statement to Newsweek. "This week, the national level is high but remains lower than the peak from this past winter respiratory season. As of July 18, 2024, SARS-CoV-2 wastewater viral activity levels are highest in the West."
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Wastewater is helpful when monitoring infection rates, as people "shed pieces of the virus or bacteria when they use the bathroom, shower, wash hands, or launder clothing, even if they don’t have symptoms," the CDC says. It then travels through drains to the sewage system, and samples are taken to be tested before the wastewater is treated.
The CDC first started the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Sept. 2020. In the last two months, 1,234 sites have reported data to the NWSS, which covers approximately 38 percent of the U.S. population.
"State and local health officials track a variety of data and put this information together to understand the local situation and decide how to best respond to prevent disease spread," Fowlie shared. "Public health officials watch for sustained increasing levels of specific viruses or bacteria in wastewater and use these data to alert clinicians, hospitals, and the community so that they can quickly take appropriate action to safeguard people's health."
However, Fowlie dispelled fears about coming into contact with wastewater, telling Newsweek that "there is no information to date that anyone has become sick with COVID-19 because of direct exposure to treated or untreated wastewater."
She added, "Wastewater treatment plants use chemical and other disinfection processes to remove and degrade many viruses and bacteria. The virus that causes COVID-19 is inactivated by the disinfection methods used in wastewater treatment."
Best Life reached out to the CDC for additional information, and will update this story when we hear back.
