CDC has tested wastewater from aircraft amid concerns over Covid-19 surge in China

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has “done some very preliminary work” to do wastewater testing with airlines, Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO for the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said Wednesday. There have been growing concerns among public health officials to ramp up monitoring for coronavirus variants amid a Covid-19 surge in China. “I think they’ve done some early piloting of one flight, for example, testing the blue water in one flight,” she said, adding that such a program could be expanded to test collections of wastewater from multiple flights or a single airport. Freeman did not know where or which airline participated in this initial testing of wastewater. “So they’re looking at that, and it does require some agreements to be made with the airlines and so forth – and then how and when to do this – but it does look like a promising area of surveillance for the future,” she said. “Certainly, expanding the wastewater surveillance just is another data point that can be helpful, and it’s a less-intrusive way of doing disease surveillance.” United Airlines said that it has “been in touch with the CDC and are evaluating our participation” in the program. CNN has requested comment from the CDC and from other US carriers that service China. US officials have been concerned about China being truthful and transparent about Covid-19 data.<br/>