A key indicator for tracking the spread of COVID-19 has officially reached “high” levels across western U.S. states, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now shows. But the agency says it remains too early to say whether this year’s summer COVID-19 surge has arrived nationwide.
Levels of SARS-CoV-2 virus showing up in wastewater samples are climbing in most parts of the country, according to figures from the agency through June 27.
Health authorities have increasingly relied on analyzing samples from sewers to get a sense of COVID-19 trends, now that cases are largely no longer being tested or reported. The CDC also relies on data from emergency rooms and hospitals to track the virus.
Nationwide, levels of the virus in wastewater are still “low,”the CDC says . But across the West, preliminary figures from the most recent weeks show this key COVID-19 trend has now passed above the threshold that the agency considers to be “high” levels of the virus.