CDC Wastewater Viral Activity Levels for SARS-CoV-2, Influenza A, and RSV

United States wastewater surveillance data provides a complete weekly history of viral activity levels for SARS-CoV-2, Influenza A, and RSV from sampling locations across the country. The dataset is updated weekly on Fridays and includes site-level metrics, population served, and geographic identifiers. Columns suggest it tracks pathogen concentration trends over time for public health monitoring.

Use Cases

• Tracking temporal trends of viral activity using `Week_End` and `Site_WVAL`.
• Comparing pathogen prevalence across states using `State/Territory` and `Pathogen_Target`.
• Assessing surveillance coverage by analyzing `Population_Served` and `Counties_Served`.
• Categorizing activity levels for public health alerts using `Site_WVAL_Category`.

Strengths

• Provides a complete time history of weekly data, indicating longitudinal depth.
• Cross-platform presence on Socrata and Data.gov signals importance and official curation.
• Dataset is updated weekly, suggesting ongoing maintenance and relevance.

Limitations

• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between sources (2026-05-22 vs 2026-04-11).
• Key metadata like row count, size, and precise time range are unavailable across all sources.
• The dataset's documentation link is provided, but direct data dictionary or detailed methodology notes are not included in the given metadata.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, likely via the CDC's National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS).

Collection Method

Wastewater sampling and analysis from US locations, methodology described at https://www.cdc.gov/wastewater.

Freshness

Last updated date conflicts: Socrata shows 2026-05-22, Data.gov shows 2026-04-11.

Geography

United States, with data at the state/territory and county level.