Though COVID has held at very low levels late spring and into summer, some early indicators show signs of rising activity, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In other developments, the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fleshed out more details about when the updated COVID-19 vaccine will roll out and how federal health officials will ensure that uninsured and underinsured people can receive their doses.
Analysis of wastewater is used in many settings for surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, but it remains unclear how well wastewater testing results reflect incidence. Denmark has had an extensive wastewater analysis system that conducts 3 weekly tests in ≈200 sites and has 85% population coverage; the country also offers free SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests to all residents. Using time series analysis for modeling, we found that wastewater data, combined with information on circulating variants and the number of human tests performed, closely fitted the incidence curve of persons testing positive
The first genome-wide hunt to find genetic risk factors for long COVID has yielded a hit: a DNA sequence near a gene called FOXP4, which is active in the lungs and in some immune cells.
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