National COVID-19 trends data remain largely unavailable this week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Out of the four metrics usually included in these updates, only one was updated in the last week:
- SARS-CoV-2 concentration in wastewater decreased 15% between October 22 and October 29, and the national wastewater trend is “medium,” per WastewaterSCAN.
Our view into COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in the U.S. remains severely limited by the government shutdown. While the data we do have suggest that COVID-19 spread is low to moderate across much of the country, wastewater surveillance indicates that cases are starting to increase in the Northeast and Midwest. Flu and RSV cases are also picking up.
WastewaterSCAN and Biobot Analytics both report low national averages of SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater: as I noted last week, WWSCAN’s national average for late October is the lowest it’s been since early 2022. But both organizations also report increasing viral levels in the Northeast and Midwest in their most recent data. I anticipate national averages won’t go down more from here, as a winter wave kicks off.
I continue to check state wastewater dashboards as well as Caitlin Rivers’ Outbreak Outlook newsletter for state-level updates. This week, SARS-CoV-2 levels remain very low in available wastewater data from West and South states, including California, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Virginia. Statewide averages for Delaware and Rhode Island trended back down in the most recent data, after a slight increase last week.
Northeast state health departments report increasing COVID-19 spread at some testing sites, in line with WWSCAN’s and Biobot’s regional data. SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater are going up in New Haven, Connecticut; Montpelier, Vermont; a couple of testing sites in Pennsylvania; two sites in greater Chicago; and possibly Boston. And Maine has reported increased emergency department visits for COVID-19 for multiple weeks in a row.
Flu and RSV spread is also increasing in some parts of the country, as expected for this time of year. New York City and New York State both reported major increases in reported flu cases for the week ending November 1. Arizona has passed its state-level baseline for flu season, Rivers flagged in her newsletter this week, and flu metrics are also going up in several other states, such as Hawaii. RSV spread is also rising in states like Florida and Georgia, particularly in young children.
Bird flu is on the rise again, too, with outbreaks across U.S. poultry farms. Farmers have already lost over one million turkeys between September 1 and late October, according to a report in Think Global Health. This is yet another area where the ongoing government shutdown is hampering data access; the CDC hasn’t updated its bird flu data page since mid-September.
Over the weekend, I heard Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center, speak at the ScienceWriters conference about preparing for future disease outbreaks. Right now, “we in the United States are heading in the exact opposite direction of the progress that we need to be seeing,” she said.
Nuzzo cited the recent shutdown as well as potential future threats to wastewater surveillance funding and international collaboration on flu tracking. But she remains optimistic that our preparedness can improve — including how we respond to the chronic disease cases that will follow future outbreaks, she told me during the Q&A part of her talk.
