Wastewater Surveillance of US Coast Guard Installations and Seagoing Military Vessels to Mitigate the Risk of COVID-19 Outbreaks, March 2021-August 2022.

Objectives: Military training centers and seagoing vessels are often environments at high risk for the spread of COVID-19 and other contagious diseases, because military trainees and personnel arrive after traveling from many parts of the country and live in congregate settings. We examined whether levels of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material in wastewater correlated with SARS-CoV-2 infections among military personnel living in communal barracks and vessels at US Coast Guard training centers in the United States.

Methods: The Coast Guard developed and established 3 laboratories with wastewater testing capability at Coast Guard training centers from March 2021 through August 2022.

Trace element bioaccumulation, tissue distribution, and elimination in odontocetes stranded in Florida and Georgia, USA over a 15-year period (2007-2021).

Odontocetes obtain nutrients including essential elements through their diet and are exposed to heavy metal contaminants via ingestion of contaminated prey. We evaluated the prevalence, concentration, and tissue distribution of essential and non-essential trace elements, including heavy metal toxicants, in tissue (blubber, kidney, liver, skeletal muscle, skin) and fecal samples collected from 90 odontocetes, representing nine species, that stranded in Georgia and Florida, USA during 2007-2021. Samples were analyzed for concentrations of seven essential (cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, zinc) and five non-essential (arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, thallium) elemental analytes using inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry.