Wastewater data show COVID-19 may rise again in U.S.: report

LOS ANGELES, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Although COVID-19 cases have fallen from a pandemic-high reported in January 2022, there is some evidence that the virus may be on the rise again, said a recent report of Bangor Daily News.

Surveillance data showed there had been an increase in viral RNA in wastewater over the past 15 days, the report cited data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Wastewater surveillance results showed uniform increases in viral levels across the state," Nirav Shah, the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, tweeted on Tuesday. "This is different from the episodic spikes we've seen before."

Data collected through March 31 showed that virus concentrations in the wastewater of Bangor, a city in the U.S. state of Maine, had increased to levels similar to those reported around mid-February, when record high of over 10,000 daily COVID-19 cases were recorded, according to the report.