We must expand COVID wastewater collection and analysis
DEADLINE TOMORROW! CDC is taking public comment through Thursday Sept 7
Make your voice heard:
Submit a public comment urging the CDC to require participation at sites well-distributed across every US state and territory, to establish collection in remote areas, and to provide more information and frequent data reporting to the public on COVID wastewater measurements.
Write to your representatives and President Biden and demand ongoing funding for COVID wastewater collection and analysis.
Submitted comments to Docket No. CDC-2023-0055-0001 must be received by the CDC no later than September 7, 2023 11:59 p.m., EST
It is important to submit a personalized comment, which could include recommendations for ongoing funding for COVID wastewater collection and analysis, adding more wastewater sites, and providing more data and more frequent reports to the public on COVID wastewater surveillance across all sites. Feel free to use the points or borrow the language in our sample letter below.
Docket No. CDC-2023-0055-0001
Scientific evidence indicates that COVID wastewater surveillance is important in understanding and potentially estimating infection prevalence in communities across the US [1]. It is a passive tool that does not interrupt people’s activities, but remains an active and impactful approach in population level surveillance of SARS-CoV-2. The role of wastewater monitoring in tracking COVID pandemic trends and variants has become all the more vital as population testing has diminished, and as access to patient samples for sequencing has likewise diminished.
The CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases needs permanent funding to ensure ongoing, long-term surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious diseases. This requires a systematic and efficient collection and analysis of these data that must be promptly reported to the public.
Although there are many sites across the U.S. participating in the program, it remains a voluntary program with many regions choosing not to participate or unable to participate due to a lack of infrastructure or limited ability to be a collection site. Every region must have representation and be a part of the program, including areas with limited public wastewater sites that could be sampled at busy locations or major gathering places.
The CDC should be transparent and regularly share all of its data on wastewater and provide graphs depicting concentration over time from each reported wastewater collection site. This will allow both local health agencies and the public to evaluate levels of COVID in their wastewater and potential prevalence in the community.
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2807632
Submitted comments to Docket No. CDC-2023-0055-0001 must be received by the CDC no later than September 7, 2023 11:59 p.m., EST