US health agency is considering sampling wastewater taken from international aircraft — a plan experts say would offer a clearer picture of how coronavirus is mutating 'given China's lack of Covid data transparency'
Experts say sampling wastewater of an airplane coming from China would be a very good tactic given China's"lack of data transparency and unwillingness to share its genomic data."
Such a policy would offer a better solution to tracking the virus and slowing its entry into the United States than new travel restrictions announced this week by the US and other countries, which require mandatory negative Covid tests for travellers from China, Reuters reported on Thursday, quoting three infectious disease experts.
The United States this week also expanded its voluntary genomic sequencing program at airports, adding Seattle and Los Angeles to the programme. That brings the total number of airports gathering information from positive tests to seven.
Still, doubts over official Chinese data have prompted many places, including the United States, Italy and Japan, to impose new testing rules on Chinese visitors as Beijing lifted travel controls. "Previous Covid-19 wastewater surveillance has shown to be a valuable tool and airplane wastewater surveillance could potentially be an option," she wrote.'Border closure won't stop the spread'
California researchers reported in July that sampling of community wastewater in San Diego detected the presence of the Alpha, Delta, Epsilon and Omicron variants up to 14 days before they started showing up on nasal swabs.
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