SFO Launches Airplane Wastewater Testing To Track Emerging COVID-19 Variants

CBS San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — San Francisco International Airport has launched a program with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test wastewater from airplanes for traces of emerging coronavirus variants.

Traces of the virus that causes COVID-19 can be detected in people's feces when they are infected, even if they don't have symptoms.

The airport announced Tuesday that the CDC's partner Concentric by Ginkgo, the biosecurity and public health unit of Boston-based synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks, has installed an automatic device that will regularly collect wastewater samples from various international flights arriving at SFO.

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