Several Countries To Monitor Wastewater Of Flights Arriving In China

Several countries have said they will monitor the wastewater from flights arriving in China in response to an explosion of Covid cases across the nation. While the measure will not prevent the spread of the virus, it will give a glimpse into the scale of China's outbreak and whether new variants are emerging there. - How does it work? - The process involves examining the mixture of urine and faeces from the toilets of flights that have arrived from China. The wastewater can then be analysed to discover roughly what percentage of the passengers have Covid, as well as the particular variants. Local authorities collect the wastewater directly after the aircraft lands and send it to laboratories for testing. Once the virus has been detected, its genome is sequenced to find out if it is a known subvariant. Wastewater can also be collected from an entire airport, but this makes it impossible to determine which country the samples originated from. - Which countries? - Belgium, Canada, Austria and…