As COVID-19 cases surge in China, infectious disease experts say the threat of a new variant is possible. The sooner the CDC knows about new variants, the faster it can respond. That is why the Biden Administration is ramping up a CDC Traveler Genomic Surveillance program that asks travelers from international flights to voluntarily do a nasal swab.

Dr. Cindy Friedman, with CDC Travelers' Health Branch, says the program currently targets approximately 500 flights per week from more than 30 countries.

"The program started back in September of 2021 with three airports at JFK, Newark and San Francisco," Dr. Friedman said. "Then, omicron came in November of 2021 and we added Atlanta. And then, the end of China's zero-COVID policy led to the expansion recently to a Seattle and LAX Los Angeles Airport."

Dr. Friedman says there are two parts to the program that are complementary to each other. One is getting nasal swabs from travelers who volunteer. The other is anonymously testing wastewater. When they get a positive result for COVID, the biological sample is sent to a lab to analyze what variant it is.

We've known for a while that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can be found in wastewater. It serves as an early detection system to know what's circulating in a specific region or in other places across the globe.

Dr. Friedman says it's helpful when a new variant is detected because action can be taken immediately.

"It could be anything from, you know, we recommend wearing a mask because there is a new variant," Dr. Friedman said. "Or our lab will check the efficacy of the vaccine against a new variant, or the treatments, the antiviral drugs. I mean, it's really important to know that the medicines that you're recommending work against the newest version of the virus."

Dr. Friedman says the program successfully discovered the BA.2 and BA.3 subvariants during the early days of omicron. She says airports will likely be the first to know if a new variant comes along.

Ginkgo Bioworks is a partner of the program that does genomic sequencing along with XpresCheck.

"The idea of having airports as places to monitor for dangerous pathogens, this is like the dream of biosecurity infrastructure," Ginkgo Bioworks General Manager Matthew McKnight said. "And I think the realization that a lot of people have come to is that it isn't science fiction, it is entirely doable."

McKnight says he expects this technology to become a permanent part of national security.

"Certainly the vision like radar is that you should be looking for more and more different things, including in the future unexpected pathogens or as we move into a new and scary world, you know, thinking about being able to monitor for genetic engineering or any sort of biothreats that might be emerging in the national security space," McKnight said.

Dr. Friedman would like to thank international travelers who take a few minutes of their time to provide a nasal swab and she wants to reassure everyone the program is anonymous.

 

Almost anywhere with a sewer connection can help the Center For Disease Control's (CDC) system for tracking COVID-19 in wastewater.  

The CDC’s Network Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) includes labs to track COVID cases.

"As you can see here, there's all these tubes, and they just have 200 microliters of this clear liquid that has all the RNA and DNA from the wastewater sample," said Joaquin Bradley Silva, lab manager at UC Berkeley.

From the samples, scientists can tell how much of the coronavirus is in an area. The CDC’s NWSS project lead says they can identify it down to the zip code.

Now, they’re starting to share that information with the public on their online COVID tracker. More than 500 sites will begin submitting data in the coming weeks.

Alexandria Boehm, a professor of civil engineering at Stanford University, leads a team of researchers testing samples from wastewater processing plants across northern California.

She says the program will help move the U.S. from a pandemic to an endemic state.  

"It's really exciting that the public can see all the hard work we've been doing and maybe become more educated about how wastewater can provide a glimpse into the public health of their communities," Dr. Boehm said. 

Monitoring wastewater provides information on a population in a single sample. It also is less biased than individual case data, which may under-represent asymptomatic infections and cases in communities with lower testing rates. 

Some critics have voiced concern about the nuance of interpreting the data.  

The CDC’s project lead says their tracker’s main metric will be looking at the percentage change of concentration over a 15-day period. People can also see how many samples tested positive at a site over that same 15 days, but it won’t compare site to site. For example, users won't be able to look at California next to Washington D.C.

This is just the start for what CDC plans to use wastewater surveillance for. By the end of this year, they plan to track other health threats like influenza and E. coli.

This story was originally reported on Newsy.com.