COVID-19

A bipartisan opportunity to strengthen America’s pandemic security Congress must reauthorize the essential PAHPA framework and enact a disciplined set of sensible reforms now. Torie Bosch STAT

In 2006, when many Americans had barely heard the word “coronavirus,” Congress passed the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA), a landmark, bipartisan legislative framework that has successfully steered our nation’s biosecurity policy ever since.

Predicting COVID-19 Incidence Using Wastewater Surveillance Data, Denmark, October 2021–June 2022 Predicting COVID-19 Using Wastewater Surveillance Emerging Infectious Diseases journal

Analysis of wastewater is used in many settings for surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, but it remains unclear how well wastewater testing results reflect incidence. Denmark has had an extensive wastewater analysis system that conducts 3 weekly tests in ≈200 sites and has 85% population coverage; the country also offers free SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests to all residents. Using time series analysis for modeling, we found that wastewater data, combined with information on circulating variants and the number of human tests performed, closely fitted the incidence curve of persons testing positive