COVID cases are currently surging in spots across the US, making it the busiest summer for the virus so far. “Currently, the COVID-19 wastewater viral activity level is very high nationally, with the highest levels in the Western US region,” Dr. Jonathan Yoder, deputy director of the CDC’s Wastewater Surveillance Program, tells CNN. “This year’s COVID-19 wave is coming earlier than last year, which occurred in late August/early September.”
“This is a very significant surge. The levels are very high. They’re the highest we’ve ever seen during a summer wave,” says Dr. Marlene Wolfe, an assistant professor of environmental health and public health at Emory University and a program director for WastewaterScan. “We’re detecting SARS-CoV-2 in 100 percent of our samples across the country right now.” Here are places you’re most likely to catch COVID, based on wastewater samples logged in the Wastewater Scan dashboard.
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Houston, Texas
ShutterstockCOVID is surging in Houston, Texas. “Here in Houston, Texas, wastewater numbers are still high and not declining,” Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease expert who is director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, tells CNN. “They have reached a plateau at a high level for several weeks.”
Honolulu, Hawaii
ShutterstockCOVID is surging in Honolulu, Hawaii. "Right now, we have a significant bump in the COVID-positive hospital patients," Dr. Scott Miscovich of Premier Medical Group Hawaii tells KITV. "At the same time, we have a jump in the percent positivity, which is a very important epidemiologic number. We've gone from 12.8% of all the tests taken positive up to 17%- or a 32% jump."
Anchorage, Alaska
ShutterstockWastewater samples show COVID is high in Anchorage, Alaska. “Anytime you get these variants that are driving the wave, typically, what’s happening is they’ve had some sort of a mutation, at least one or a couple, that typically will give them the capability to evade prior immunity better than other strains that are circulating,” Joe McLaughlin, an epidemiologist with the state’s division of public health, tells Alaska Public News.
New Jersey
ShutterstockCOVID is surging in New Jersey. “The lack of testing and the use of home tests has greatly decreased the ability to get a full sense of the disease,” Linda Brown, executive director of the New Jersey Association of County and City Health Officials, tells NJ Spotlight News. “People who test for COVID at home — as many now do — are not required to report their results, something Brown said “can make true [disease] surveillance that much harder.”
San Francisco, CA
ShutterstockCases are surging in the Bay Area. “I think a lot of families have moved on from COVID but COVID is still with us and has been making that known this summer with the latest surge,” says Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.
Las Vegas, Nevada
ShutterstockCOVID is surging in Nevada. "Our surveillance is very clear," Dr. Anil Mangla, director of disease surveillance and control for the Southern Nevada Health District, tellsKTNV. "We're seeing it in wastewater and we have other surveillance systems that we monitor and we're seeing a similar kind of trend there, too."
Lincoln, Nebraska
ShutterstockWastewater data shows COVID is surging in Nebraska. “There’s definitely a bit of a bump in our numbers,” Lindsay Huse, director of the Douglas County Health Department, tells Omaha World-Herald.
Montpelier, Vermont
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COVID is high in Vermont. "As of July 20th, wastewater and emergency department admissions suggest a current level of COVID-19 activity that is similar to what we saw in March of 2024,” John Davy, PhD, Epidemiologist/COVID-19 Coordinator for the VDH, told VermontBiz. “This level is lower than we saw in December 2023 through February 2024, but we have seen a slow upward trend in the last several weeks.”
Atlanta, Georgia
ShutterstockCOVID is high in Atlanta, Georgia. “We’ve seen all ages, from a one-year-old up to 75 years old with COVID-19,” Dr. Luke Lathrop, the chief medical officer at SmartMED Drive-Thru Medical Care clinic in Roswell, tells WSB-TV Atlanta. “Anything from a low-grade fever to a cough, congestion, a sore throat, headache. I’d say the main thing we’ve seen is just fatigue.”
New Orleans, Louisiana
ShutterstockCases of COVID are surging in New Orleans. "More patients presenting to the emergency department, and more patients getting tested for COVID, and then those patients being positive on those tests," says Dr. David Janz, Director of Medical Critical Care Services at University Medical Center. “What we're seeing right now in Louisiana of all the people getting a COVID test for whatever reason, about 25% of them are coming back positive. Which is a dramatic increase just compared to two or three months ago."
Provo, Utah
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COVID levels are high in Utah, officials report. Epidemiologist Josh Benton says COVID-19 can be present in the body for a week without symptoms, “but the virus can be detected in wastewater levels earlier.”
Boston, Massachusetts
ShutterstockCOVID is spiking in Boston, Massachusetts. “We are not in 2020,” Boston Medical Center’s Dr. Sabrina Assoumou tells Boston.com. “We are not back at the beginning of the pandemic when we were all overwhelmed at the hospital because of the number of severe cases … we are not seeing that.”
