Testing environmental water to monitor COVID-19 spread in unsheltered encampments

To better understand COVID-19's spread during the pandemic, public health officials have expanded wastewater surveillance. These efforts track SARS-CoV-2 levels and health risks among most people, but they miss people who live without shelter, a population particularly vulnerable to severe infection.

To fill this information gap, researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology Letters tested flood-control waterways near unsheltered encampments, finding similar transmission patterns as in the broader community and identifying previously unseen viral mutations.

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Study describes more severe pediatric mental health crises during pandemic Children visiting the emergency department (ED) for mental health crises during the pandemic had longer stays and more severe diagnoses, according to a new study in Academic Emergency Medicine. CIDRAP

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The study was based on ED visits to nine US hospitals participating in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network Registry from 2017 to 2022.

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