Testing environmental water to monitor COVID-19 spread in unsheltered encampments

[Science - Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily]

To better understand COVID-19's spread during the pandemic, public health officials 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 tested flood-control waterways near unsheltered encampments, finding similar transmission patterns as in the broader community and identifying previously unseen viral mutations.

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