Summary

A city's sewers say a lot about its residents. Sick people often shed pathogens in their waste, adding traceable amounts of bacteria and viruses to wastewater. Testing that wastewater offers a simple, low-cost way to monitor the spread of disease—a practice that began with polio in the 1940s and became more widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the CDC's wastewater monitoring program tests for a variety of common and emerging viruses.

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