The opening ceremony of the 8th Chile Week in Beijing kicked off on Monday. About 200 people attended the ceremony, including Chinese and Chilean representatives from associations, importers and exporters, and media.
Afterward, the annual China-Chile Business Council Meeting was successfully held, at which the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, encouraged Chinese and Chilean enterprises to enhance understanding and communication, with hopes that more Chinese enterprises make their debut in Chile to research the opportunities and invest in the country.
The Beijing leg of Chile Week boasted both online and offline sessions to showcase Chilean products. Many Chilean enterprises had their high-quality products on display for audiences during the offline business networking "encuentro."
During the livestream broadcast on Douyin, a Chile Week live special sale was held to allow Chinese friends unable to be present offline to buy Chilean goods.
Chile Week is an annual event that serves as a platform for exchanges and interaction between China and Chile on all fronts, as well as an excellent opportunity to strengthen ties between the two countries in agribusiness, seafood, mining, energy, and other strategic sectors.
The first leg of the 8th Chile Week was inaugurated in Shenzhen on October 14, followed by the Chengdu stop on October 15, and the Shanghai leg from Thursday to Friday.
Citing sources from the US, Japanese media on Sunday reported that troops from Taiwan island last month attended military exercises led by the US National Guard in Michigan.
Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times that Taiwan troops' participation in the US National Guard exercises shows that Taiwan island is enhancing cooperation with all levels of US military forces including the National Guard, while at the same time strengthening its urban terrain operational capabilities in case of an urban war.
Zhang Hua, a research fellow at the Institute of Taiwan Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, echoed Song's view, adding that the US and the island of Taiwan are confusing the "cause" and "effect." They say their cooperation is a result of pressure from the mainland, but fail to mention the pressure is a result of "Taiwan independence," Zhang told the Global Times.
Although Japanese media reported that it was the National Guard, instead of the US Armed Forces, that led the Michigan exercises, an arrangement in a bid not to provoke China too much, the two Chinese experts believed this actually constitutes a full-fledged challenge against China and that the depth and width of cooperation between US and Taiwan forces is expanding.
The US keeps arming Taiwan by selling a large amount of weapons and equipment to Taiwan and encouraging Taiwan to "reject reunification with force," a move that aims to incite tensions across the Straits and will inevitably exacerbate the tension between China and the US which may lead to a conflict.
The US is unwilling to confront the Chinese People's Liberation Army directly. What it hopes more is a "wolfpack tactic" that relies on its allies. But at the same time, the US is worried that allies such as Japan, South Korea and Australia may not be willing to come to the front line to participate should a war break out. Therefore, its strategy is to encourage "self-defense" of the Taiwan authorities. The training, exercises, weapons and equipment provided by the US are all aimed at enabling the Taiwan authorities to achieve this goal.
As recent as July 28, the Biden administration announced a $345 million weapons package for Taiwan. Then in late August, for the first time it approved sending direct US military aid, which comprised an $80 million package to Taiwan under the Foreign Military Financing program. From the perspective of the US, whether it is the "porcupine strategy," "hedgehog strategy" or "iron keg strategy," it all boils down to the same thing, the US wants Taiwan to buy both offensive and defensive weapons and equipment from the US, and it wants to turn Taiwan into an "iron keg." And song pointed out that the US never cares about the security of the people on the Taiwan island.
China's bottom line on the Taiwan question is clear. Article 8 of China's Anti-Secession Law has explained that the country "shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity" in the event that the "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted. The Chinese mainland has never promised to renounce the use of force, and this is the Sword of Damocles hanging over the US government and Taiwan authorities.
After marathon negotiations, the G20 summit held in New Delhi, India, finally managed to reach a joint declaration on September 10, avoiding the embarrassment of a fruitless summit. The Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting and Foreign Ministers' Meeting hosted by India before the summit failed to produce a decent joint declaration, highlighting the significant differences in positions and opinions among the countries as well as the Indian government's struggle to deal with a divided world.
The joint declaration of this summit once again clarifies the positioning of the G20 as "the premier forum for international economic cooperation," and it states that "while the G20 is not the platform to resolve geopolitical and security issues, we acknowledge that these issues can have significant consequences for the global economy." G20 members have reached a consensus and invited the African Union (AU) to become a formal member of the mechanism. This can be seen as a "rectification" to counter the attempts by the US and the West to hijack the G20 summit agenda, as well as a response from developing countries and the Global South.
Despite the discontent in Ukraine and the difficulty of reaching consensus, Western diplomats were willing to "let through" the declaration's wording on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, probably believing it was a price worth paying. Aljazeera commented that "many Western countries, concerned about China's rising power, want New Delhi - a strategic counterweight to Beijing - to be able to claim this summit was a great success."
Inviting the AU to join the G20 is an important outcome of this summit. As the largest developing country and a member of the Global South, China was the first country to explicitly express its support for the AU's membership in the G20. Of course, India's efforts to include the AU may imply a calculation to win the support of African countries for India's bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council.
Since taking over as the rotating chair of the G20 summit in December last year, the Modi administration has regarded the G20 summit as a "golden opportunity" to confirm India as a "global leading power." It also intends to turn this into a major diplomatic achievement domestically and use it as an opportunity for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to campaign for next year's general elections.
At the same time, India sees itself as a bridge between the "Global South" and the "Global West." The External Affairs Minister of India, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said India has the potential to become "a bridge between the established and emerging orders."
However, India's dream of being a great power is idealistic, but the reality and setbacks it encounters are cruel. From the beginning, India has been under pressure from the US and the West, demanding condemnation of Russia at the G20 summit. New Delhi wants to maintain its special partnership with Moscow, while also trying to please the US and the West and act as the spokesperson for the "Global South." Meanwhile, the current administration wants to campaign for the BJP in next year's general elections. It is obvious that India expects too much from the G20 summit.
It is understandable that India wants to use the G20 summit stage to demonstrate its status as a major power and shape an international order that is favorable to itself.
However, the excessive political calculations and geopolitical considerations introduced into the G20 summit agenda have led to reduced expectations from relevant countries and have deprived the international community of an opportunity to concentrate on substantively addressing global challenges such as food and energy crises.
China and India have had good cooperation in many areas. However, in recent years, India has deliberately highlighted its differences with China in such areas as regional and global governance as well as sustainable development, with the intention of marginalizing China from the Global South community. New Delhi's practice of undermining developing countries' unity and cooperation and boosting itself by belittling other countries deserves vigilance. It is destined to be recorded in the history of the G20 New Delhi Summit and reflects the delusional side of India's dream of becoming a major power.
China's State Council Information Office issued an informative white paper, entitled "A Global Community of Shared Future: China's Proposals and Actions," to review and preview the China-led vision of co-building a global community of shared future on Tuesday in Beijing. Humanity is yet again at another crossroads in history, and the choices between unity and division, between opening up and closing off, as well as between cooperation and confrontation test the wisdom of all countries, the white paper said. How should we understand the global community of shared future? How should countries around the world work together to promote the construction of the global community of shared future? Global Times invited two foreign scholars to share their views on this issue.
Building a global community of shared future is a Chinese proposal to jointly address global challenges and create a better future for humanity. Under this proposal, China advocates building a world of lasting peace through dialogue and consultation, building a world of common security for all through joint efforts, building a world of common prosperity through win-win cooperation, and building an open and inclusive world through exchanges and mutual learning and making the world clean and beautiful by pursuing green and low-carbon development. This is the beautiful vision of the global community of shared future presented by China in the new era.
The world is currently undergoing unprecedented changes that have not been seen in a century. On the one hand, there is a historical inclination toward peace and the recognition of the need to eliminate irreparable conflicts that are detrimental to the planet. Additionally, there is a growing tendency toward development, cooperation and mutual benefit that cannot be stopped. On the other hand, the presence of hegemonism and bullying between countries and peoples is causing significant harm, leading to unprecedented challenges for the international community. As a result, the world finds itself at a crucial juncture in history. The establishment of a global community of shared future is of the utmost importance for humanity. This concept enables the international community to confront the new challenges brought about by these major changes and work together toward a common goal.
Furthermore, it is imperative to align with the current trend of the times, which is characterized by a new scientific and technological revolution driven by information technology. The internet has revolutionized the world, bringing the international community closer than ever before. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that the future is also shared in cyberspace. This entails promoting common development, enhancing security and actively participating in governance, with a commitment to jointly sharing the outcomes. The first strategic goals should be to prioritize responsibility and interests that benefit all of mankind.
A further step toward shared future is to improve human welfare and well-being. We also need cultural exchanges to promote knowledge and mutual learning; innovative economic development for common prosperity; ensuring international security and fostering orderly development. Furthermore, the strengthening of the authority of the United Nations, whose documents are all too often disregarded and advancing equity and justice to provide a practical approach and a pathway to peace are also needed.
Unfortunately, the world is currently facing the dangers of unilateralism, protectionism, and hegemonism. Unilateralism refers to a major power that, regardless of the wishes of the majority of countries and citizens, takes the initiative to withdraw or defy the rules and regulations that have been drafted and negotiated to maintain international, regional and collective peace. These systems, behaviors and tendencies have destructive effects and consequences on global or local peace, development and progress. Therefore, a reform in international governance is necessary to ensure that global governance adheres to the principles of opposing protectionism and unilateralism. This reform should also contribute to promoting the process of trade liberalization and investment facilitation worldwide, ultimately serving the principle of non-discrimination among peoples.
As is well known, hegemonism refers to the oppression, domination, interference and subversion of small, weak and poor countries by large, powerful and rich countries. It does not respect the independence and sovereignty of others and exercises control and rule by force. Hegemonism can be observed at both global and regional levels. Throughout history, many powers, particularly the US, have all attempted to gain world hegemony, often disguising their actions as neo-colonialism. The evidence of hegemonism can be seen by examining history. In order to maintain peace, the only solution is to counteract it.
Joining forces to build a global community of shared future is a realistic requirement and the only choice for the survival and development of mankind. Building such a community is an important trend in history and is inevitable. However, achieving this goal is not something that can happen overnight; it requires a long and difficult process.
In reality, building a global community of shared future faces challenges such as differences in strategic thinking, cultural values and global strength among countries around the world. Additionally, there are risks of conflicts arising from fundamental interests in the international arena. It is important to understand these challenges objectively and propose targeted response strategies. Taking the initiative to resolve crises quickly, opening up new opportunities for change, maximizing advantages and avoiding disadvantages are crucial steps in this process. It is also important to explore constructive practices that rule out war as a solution. Only by doing so can we make steady progress toward this goal.
While EU's trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis urges China to do more to help "reduce the perception of risk," there are multiple signs that bilateral economic ties are embarking on fast-track development. Obviously, the European business community hopes EU's priority is to promote cooperation, rather than "de-risk" its relationship with China.
Amid global uncertainty, European and Chinese senior officials held high-level economic and trade talks on Monday. Despite some disagreements which are continually hyped up by some EU politicians, the high-level trade talks serve as a good opportunity for China and the EU to enhance communication and understanding.
Ahead of the dialogue, some statistics showed German companies continue to invest heavily in China despite calls from a number of German politicians to reduce their exposure in China. Investment in China as a share of Germany's overall investments increased to 16.4 percent in the first half of this year from 11.6 percent in 2022 and 5.1 percent in 2019, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing data from the German Economic Institute, a private economic research institute in Germany.
Germany has been Europe's economic engine for decades. However, persistent inflation has pushed the German economy into a technical recession with data showing that the economy contracted in the first quarter of 2023. Overall, German direct investment outflows dropped sharply, to 63 billion euros ($67 billion) in the first half of 2023 from 104 billion euros in the first half of 2022.
At a time when Europe's largest economy is battling recession, the Chinese economy offers opportunities for German enterprises. That's why in spite of the so-called decoupling or de-risking rhetoric made by some Western officials, European investments continue to pour into China.
It is worth noting that there is a trend that the more open China becomes, the more vigilant the EU has become against China. It is true that economic and trade disputes exist in China-EU relations. The European Commission launched an investigation on September 13 into whether to impose additional tariffs to protect EU producers against cheaper Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports it says are benefiting from the so-called state subsidies. Trade protectionism could be a double-edged sword for bilateral relations, as China is now an important overseas market for European enterprises.
Dombrovskis said in a speech he delivered at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Monday that Europe's economic ties with China are deep, but China "could do a lot to help reduce our perception of risk," according to a Reuters report. The report said the EU has long complained about "a lack of level playing field in China" and "the politicization of the business environment," which is mainly a Western narrative to sow discord and to pressure China to give foreign investors supernational treatment.
As a matter of fact, Europe is the party that adopts protectionist measures to disrupt economic and trade cooperation. China welcomes investment from European countries, but the ball is in the European's court to break down barriers over mutually-beneficial economic cooperation. The best way to help reduce European perception of risk is to put geopolitical thinking aside, stop adopting protectionist measures, fully consider the feelings of European companies, and resolve each other's concerns through dialogue and consultation.
Monday's dialogue, the first in-person meeting post-pandemic, has drawn wide attention. It's impossible to solve each and every problem overnight, especially amid the "decoupling" calls and the instigations by the US, but achievements will add up through frank dialogues and communications, pushing forward China-EU economic ties.
Monday's trade talks won't become the endpoint for both sides to seek common ground and solutions to resolve differences and problems. Future efforts should be made and the European side should take more responsibility, as it is the party bowing to trade protectionism. Whether it can "reduce the perception of risk" depends on Europe's attitude toward trade protectionism.
Airbus is playing a role of "catalyst" in Chinese market for the development of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry, propelling sustainable energy transition in civilian aviation sector to realize decarbonization targets, an executive from Airbus said in Beijing on Tuesday.
Airbus is working on a number of levers, so the first one is technology and fleet renewal. The company is also working actively on improving the efficiency of operations. And the third and very big one is the energy transition of which SAF is a key topic, Julie-Kitcher, Executive Vice President of Airbus said.
The comments are made as more Chinese airlines vowing to promote use of sustainable aviation fuel. In October of last year, Airbus said its Tianjin plant delivered an A320neo to China Eastern Airlines that used five percent SAF as the fuel during its delivery flight.
SAF is a sustainable aviation fuel made from feedstock ranging from used fat, oil and grease to municipal and forestry waste. Compared to fossil jet fuel, SAF has been demonstrated to result in an up to 80 percent reduction in CO2 emissions. Therefore, it is considered as a key enabler to contribute to the de-carbonization of aviation sector. And so when talking about SAF, there's a huge capability in China with feedstock in abundance, technology and innovation and in fact, China has been supporting certification since 2008 in different ways. All the airlines have expressed interest in environmental matters on sustainability, SAF in particular, Kitcher said.
And Airbus is working with China National Aviation Fuel Group Corporation to develop the SAF industry or act as a catalyst in China, she added.
In July of last year, the Airbus Lifecycle Services Center project broke ground in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province. The project is Airbus' first aircraft lifecycle service project outside Europe. The company said the project has moved from the planning stage to construction and the aim is for it to enter into service by the end of 2023.
Airbus is spending around 2 billion euros per annum on R&D, which is mainly targeting sustainable aviation. All partners and players will need to make significant investments for their respective licenses to continue to operate. Aircraft manufacturer need to really look at the overall lifecycle of the aircraft, so it's from design, supply chain, the operations, the maintenance, and the end of life recycling, Kitcher said.
To show the conviction in terms of the necessity to decarbonize the sector, Kitcher said that they're working on different levels for the industry, including the technology starting with fleet renewal and enhancing and improving the efficiency of air traffic management operations.
She also said to enhance the energy transition, which means to increase the adoption of SAF, Airbus targets to certify all its aircraft with 100 percent SAF capability by the end of this decade, adding that the company is also developing hydrogen technologies for future use.
Airbus is aiming to reach a global 10 percent target by 2030, which is around 34 million tons of SAF by 2030.Actual demand for probably around 20 million tons are committed. So "we still have progress to make, but we're confident that collectively we can get there", she said.
Travel heat continued to spread nationwide. The number of railway trips made by Chinese passengers is expected to hit 16.40 million on Monday, the fourth day of eight-day-long National Day holiday and the Mid-Autumn Festival.
On October 1, the national railway transported 16.29 million passengers, China Railway, the national railway operator, said on Monday. On October 2, it is estimated that the national railway will transport 16.40 million passengers, with 11,274 passenger trains in operation, including 906 additional trains.
The Yangtze River Delta region is expected to transfer 3.5 million passenger trips, which is about 28 percent more than the same period in 2019, according to media reports.
The 2023 Golden Week started from September 29 to October 6. The 8-day holiday is the longest public holiday of the year.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism estimated there will be 896 million domestic tourists traveling during the Golden Week holiday, an increase of 86 percent compared to last year. Domestic tourism revenue is expected to reach 782.5 billion yuan ($107.2 billion), up by 138 percent on a yearly basis.
The popularity of scenic spots, urban leisure, rural tourism, and visiting relatives and friends has increased significantly, the ministry said.
Localities on Monday started to release travel statistics for the first three days.
Beijing's major scenic spots received 6.825 million tourists during the first three days of the holiday, up by 60.6 percent year-on-year. Tourism revenue reached 4.19 trillion yuan, an increase of 25.2 percent year-on-year.
A netizen posted a photo of the Badaling Great Wall in Beijing, saying that it is not exhausting at all climbing the Great Wall, when you only take two steps in three minutes.
Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, which is hosting the 19th Asian Games, has welcomed a record number of tourists during the holiday. During the first three days, the city welcomed a total of 4.7 million tourists.
Tickets of many popular scenic spots were sold out, with some sold out even before the holiday started.
Tickets for Mount Taishan in East China's Shandong Province were all sold out until Wednesday. Tickets can be booked 14 days in advance. The current daily limit is 80,000 tourists.
A netizen posted a photo of crowds queuing at the entrance of Mount Taishan at 4:30 in the morning, attempting to avoid huge tourist flows.
Mount Huangshan in East China's Anhui Province said in an announcement on Sunday that tickets for Monday have been sold out and advised tourists who failed to buy a ticket to avoid the site. Huangshan welcomed 29,753 tourists alone on Sunday.
A number of museums also announced that they have reached their daily limits.
Sichuan Museum in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, said its reservations have reached daily limit of 10,000 visitors until Wednesday.
The Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province was also fully booked until Wednesday, with only few tickets left for Thursday and Friday.
A netizen who visited the museum joked: "Even the terracotta warriors would not have room to stand, if they were not put inside the protection window."
China on Monday released the first Mars global images obtained from its first Mars exploration mission, providing an improved quality base map for scientific and exploration tasks on the Red Planet, the Global Times learned from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) at the opening ceremony of this year's Space Day of China.
The color images, jointly issued by the CNSA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), included orthographic, Robinson, Mercator and azimuthal projections of the eastern and western hemispheres of Mars with a spatial resolution of 76 meters.
The image maps will provide an improved quality base map for Mars exploration projects and scientific research, the CNSA said, and data obtained by the Tianwen mission will make key contributions to humanity's in-depth knowledge of the planet.
The medium-resolution camera onboard Tianwen-1 took 284 orbital remote sensing images from November 2021 to July 2022, so as to achieve global coverage of the Martian surface. Some 14,757 images were acquired by the ground-based application system, which were then processed to obtain the global color image map of Mars.
China's panoramic map of Mars is one of the most advanced in the field that is open to the public, experts noted, and it means that China is willing to share cutting-edge technology and information with its peers.
"This year's China Space Day underscores our willingness to share information with the world, showing that China's space achievements are entirely for the development of human scientific and technological progress. It also suggests our growing confidence in this field," Song Zhongping, a space analyst and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Monday.
"Technology has no borders, but the US has been constantly putting up shields and fences to block others from its technology, as well as engaging in technological monopolies, information hegemony and a Cold War in space," he said.
At the opening ceremony on Monday, the CNSA also disclosed that 22 sites on Mars have been given Chinese names.
China's research teams have identified a large number of geographical entities near the landing site of Tianwen through high-resolution images, and the International Astronomical Union has named 22 of them after villages in China with historical and cultural significance and a population of less than 100,000.
In this way, China's presence is permanently engraved on Mars' surface.
Tianwen-1, China's first Mars mission probe, embarked on its journey on July 23, 2020, and after 202 days of travel, it began to orbit Mars. On May 15, 2021, the land rover Zhurong landed in a designated spot on the Martian surface and started its trek. It completed its 90-Martian-day scientific exploration task and kept working for another 268 Martian days, and has remained in hibernation mode since.
As of June 29, 2022, the Mars orbiter had carried out global remote sensing for more than 1,000 days, and it is still carrying on its mission in fine condition.
China's first Mars mission, which orbits Mars, land and rove in one go, was completed successfully.
The 13 payloads carried by the mission have accumulated 1,800 gigabytes of scientific data and formed standard data products.
Over the past two years, Tianwen-1 has obtained first-hand detection data and achieved notable scientific research results, which analysts said would be continued with further multi-dimensional exploration missions being carried out.
In May 2022, a research team from the CAS detected water-bearing minerals on Mars by analyzing data collected by the Zhurong rover, marking a world first that water-bearing minerals on the planet were detected by a short-wave infrared spectrometer on a Mars rover. The findings have been published in detail in the journal Science.
Another major discovery by the Chinese Mars rover came when scientists used a ground-penetrating radar on Zhurong to find possible evidence of floods on the Red Planet billions of years ago. Though no direct evidence for liquid water was found in the shallow subsurface, the study lends weight to the theory that the rover's landing area - the Utopia Planitia - once hosted an ancient ocean, researchers from the CAS and Peking University said in a Nature paper published in September 2022.
China launched its largest solid propellant rocket Lijian-1 on Wednesday, successfully sending 26 satellites into preset orbit and setting the country's new record for launching multiple satellites in one go. The satellites will mainly provide commercial remote sensing information services.
The Wednesday launch marks the second flight of Lijian-1, indicating the maturity of the solid propellant rocket's technology and the continuous improvement of its reliability, which can further boost the commercialization of China's launch vehicles.
In an exclusive interview with the Global Times, chief engineer assistant on Lijian-1 Shi Xiaoning said he was quite confident about the rocket as its reliability has been verified. But he was still concerned about the separation of satellites from the rocket.
"This time, there were more satellites to send and we not only needed to ensure that each of them could be successfully separated, but also ensure the accuracy of the satellite's orbit insertion, which was quite challenging," Shi said. "Therefore, we closely monitored data for each satellite separation, but in the end we accurately delivered each satellite to the designated orbit."
Lijian-1 made its maiden flight on July 27, 2022, successfully sending six satellites into their preset orbits. According to its developer, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the 2.65-meter-diameter and 30-meter-long new rocket is the largest of its kind in China.
It has achieved breakthroughs in six key technologies and utilized 13 domestic technologies for the first time, enriching China's spectrum of solid carrier rocket launch capabilities and making significant contributions to the technological transformation of China's carrier rocket industry.
Lijian-1 is a four-stage launch vehicle weighing 135 tons at launch with a thrust of 200 tons. It is capable of sending payloads of 1,500 kilograms into 500-kilometer Sun-synchronous orbits (SSO). Prior to that, the capacity of Chinese commercial space rockets in SSO was below 1,000 kilograms.
For the next step, the rocket developer Guangzhou Zhongke Aerospace Exploration Technology Co (CAS Space) will continue to enrich the spectrum of China's solid propellant launch vehicles. In addition to building a sea launch platform for Lijian-1, a new solid rocket with a diameter of 3.5 meters is also under development, the Global Times has learned.
The future of disease tracking is going down the drain — literally. Flushed with success over detecting coronavirus in wastewater, and even specific variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, researchers are now eyeing our collective poop to monitor a wide variety of health threats.
Before the pandemic, wastewater surveillance was a smaller field, primarily focused on testing for drugs or mapping microbial ecosystems. But these researchers were tracking specific health threats in specific places — opioids in parts of Arizona, polio in Israel — and hadn’t quite realized the potential for national or global public health. Then COVID-19 hit.
The pandemic triggered an “incredible acceleration” of wastewater science, says Adam Gushgari, an environmental engineer who before 2020 worked on testing wastewater for opioids. He now develops a range of wastewater surveillance projects for Eurofins Scientific, a global laboratory testing and research company headquartered in Luxembourg.
A subfield that was once a few handfuls of specialists has grown into more than enough scientists to pack a stadium, he says. And they come from a wide variety of fields — environmental science, analytical chemistry, microbiology, epidemiology and more — all collaborating to track the coronavirus, interpret the data and communicate results to the public. With other methods of monitoring COVID-19 on the decline, wastewater surveillance has become one of health experts’ primary sources for spotting new surges.
Hundreds of wastewater treatment plants across the United States are now part of COVID-19 testing programs, sending their data to the National Wastewater Surveillance System, or NWSS, a monitoring program launched in fall 2020 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hundreds more such testing programs have launched globally, as tracked by the COVIDPoops19 dashboard run by researchers at the University of California, Merced.
In the last year, wastewater scientists have started to consider what else could be tracked through this new infrastructure. They’re looking at seasonal diseases like the flu, recently emerging diseases like bird flu and mpox, formerly called monkeypox, as well as drug-resistant pathogens like the fungus Candida auris. The scientists are even considering how to identify entirely new threats.
Wastewater surveillance will have health impacts “far broader than COVID,” predicts Amy Kirby, a health scientist at the CDC who leads NWSS.
But there are challenges getting from promise to possible. So far, such sewage surveillance has been mostly a proof of concept, confirming data from other tracking systems. Experts are still determining how data from our poop can actually inform policy; that’s true even for COVID-19, now the poster child for this monitoring. And they face public officials wary of its value and questions over whether, now that COVID-19 health emergencies have ended, the pipeline of funding will be cut off.
This monitoring will hopefully become “one of the technologies that really evolves post-pandemic to be here to stay,” says Mariana Matus, cofounder of Biobot Analytics, a company based in Cambridge, Mass., that has tested sewage for the CDC and many other health agencies. But for that to happen, the technology needs continued buy-in from governments, research institutions and the public, Matus and other scientists say.
How wastewater testing works Wastewater-based epidemiology has a long history, tracing back at least to physician John Snow’s 1850s observations that cholera outbreaks in London were connected to contaminated water. In the 1920s and ’30s, scientists began to take samples from sewage and study them in the lab, learning to isolate specific pathogens that cause disease. These early researchers focused on diseases that spread through contaminated water, such as polio and typhoid.
Today, automated machines typically retrieve sewage samples. The machines used to collect waste beneath maintenance hole covers are “like R2-D2 in terms of size” or smaller, says Erin Driver, an environmental engineer at Arizona State University in Tempe who works on collection methods.
Driver can plug this machine, or a larger version used for sampling at wastewater treatment plants, into a water pipe and program it to pull a small amount of sewage into an empty bottle at regular intervals, say, once an hour for 24 hours. She and colleagues are developing smaller versions of the automated sampler that could be better suited for more targeted sampling.
What happens in the lab to that bottle of waste depends on what scientists are testing for. To test for opioids and other chemicals, scientists might filter large particles out of the sample with a vacuum system, extract the specific chemicals that they want to test, then run the results through a spectrometer, an instrument that measures chemical concentrations by analyzing the light the chemicals give off.
To determine levels of SARS-CoV-2 or another virus, a scientist might separate liquid waste from solid waste with a centrifuge, isolate viral genetic material, and then test the results with a PCR machine, similar to testing someone’s nose swab. Or, if scientists want to know which SARS-CoV-2 variants are present, they can put the material through a machine that identifies a variety of genetic sequences.
Would the coronavirus even show up in waste? In the panicked early days of the pandemic, an urgent basic question loomed. “Will this even work?” remembers Marlene Wolfe, an environmental microbiologist at Emory University in Atlanta. While polio is spread through fecal matter, there were early hints that the coronavirus mostly spreads through the air; scientists initially weren’t even sure that it would show up in sewage.
On the same day in 2020 that the San Francisco Bay Area went on lockdown, Wolfe and colleagues at Stanford University, where she was based at the time, got a grant to find out. The team was soon spending hours driving around the Bay Area to collect sewage samples, “navigating lockdown rules” and negotiating special permissions to use lab space, she says.
“We were anxiously waiting to see if our first samples would show a positive result for SARS-CoV-2,” Wolfe says.
Not only did the sewage samples test positive, Wolfe and her colleagues found that coronavirus levels in the Bay Area’s wastewater followed the same trends as reported cases, the team reported in December 2020 in Environmental Science & Technology. When case counts went up, more virus appeared in the sewage, and vice versa. Early projects in other parts of the country showed similar results. More than three years later, data on reported cases have become much less reliable. Fewer people are seeking out lab-based PCR tests in favor of easier-to-access at-home tests — with results often not reported. Wastewater trends have become the best proxy to provide early warnings of potential new COVID-19 surges, such as the increased spread this summer, to health officials and the public alike.
Opening the tracking floodgates In summer 2022, wastewater tracking got a new chance to prove itself. Mpox was rapidly spreading globally, including in the United States. But tests were limited, and the disease, which was spreading primarily through intimate contact between men, quickly drew social stigma, leading some people to hesitate in seeking medical care.
Within a few weeks of the start of the U.S. outbreak, Wolfe and her colleagues, as well as research teams at Biobot and other companies, had developed tests to identify mpox in sewage.
Just as scientists had seen with COVID-19, mpox trends in wastewater matched trends in official case numbers. In California, wastewater results even suggested that the disease may have spread farther than data from doctors’ offices suggested, Wolfe and collaborators reported in February in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Like COVID-19, mpox doesn’t transmit through the water, but sewage testing still picked up the virus. The early results from that summer outbreak convinced some health officials that wastewater technology could be used for many diseases, no matter how they spread, Matus says. Scientists are starting to find more and more infectious diseases that can be tracked in sewage. “Honestly, everything that we’ve tried so far has worked,” says Wolfe, who is now a principal investigator of WastewaterSCAN, a national sewage testing project led by researchers at Stanford and Emory. The project team currently tests samples for six different viruses and is working on other tests that it can send out to the more than 150 sites in its monitoring network.
Through an informal literature review of pathogens important for public health, scientists at Biobot found that previous research had identified 76 out of 80 of them in wastewater, stool or urine, suggesting that those pathogens could be monitored through sewage. The list ranges from the chicken pox virus to the microbes that cause sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia to the tickborne bacteria that cause Lyme disease.
Finding focus With this much opportunity, the question on many researchers’ minds is not, “What can we test for?” but “What should we test for?”
In January, a report put out by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine came up with three criteria. The pathogen should threaten public health. It should be detectable in wastewater. And it should generate data that public health agencies can use to protect their communities.
Given all the threats and hints of what can be found in wastewater, the first two criteria don’t narrow the field too much. So for now, researchers are taking cues from state and local public health officials on which pathogens to prioritize.
Biobot is working on tests for common diseases like the flu, RSV, hepatitis C and gonorrhea. And the CDC has its eye on some of the same common pathogens, as well as strategies for tracking antimicrobial resistance, a threat that has increased during the pandemic as health systems have been under strain.
Even if they choose the perfect targets, though, researchers also have to figure out how to generate useful data. For now, that’s a sticking point.
How to use the data Tracking pathogens is one thing. But determining how the results correspond to actual numbers of sick people is another, even in the case of COVID-19, where researchers now have years of detailed data. As a result, many public health officials aren’t yet ready to make policy decisions based on poop data.
In New York City over the last three years, for example, the local government has poured more than $1 million into testing for COVID-19, mpox and polio in sewage from the city’s water treatment plants. But the city’s health department hasn’t been using the resulting data to inform local COVID-19 safety measures, so it’s unclear what’s being done with the data. Health officials are used to one swab per person, says Rachel Poretsky, a microbiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago. She also heads wastewater monitoring for the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
Public health training relies on identifying individual sick people and tracing how they became ill. But in wastewater surveillance, one data point could represent thousands of sick people — and the data come from the environment, rather than from hospitals and health clinics. What to do next when positive results turn up isn’t as obvious.
Numbers collected from the health care system always represent patients, so a spike indicates a surge in cases. In the case of sewage data, however, environmental factors like weather, local industries and the coming and going of tourists also can create “weird outliers” that resist easy interpretation, Poretsky says. For instance, a massive rainstorm might dilute samples, or chemical runoff from a factory might interfere with a research team’s analytical methods.
Data interpretation only gets more complicated when scientists begin testing wastewater for an increasing number of health threats. Every pathogen’s data need to be interpreted differently.
With coronavirus data, for example, wastewater tests consistently come back positive, so interpreting the data is all about looking for trends: Are viral concentrations going up or down? How does the amount of virus present compare with the past? A spike in a particular location might signal a surge in the community that hasn’t yet been picked up by the health care system. The community might respond by boosting health resources, such as opening vaccine clinics, handing out free masks and at-home tests, or adding staff to local hospital emergency departments.
Mpox, on the other hand, has infected far fewer people, and positive tests have been rare after last summer’s outbreaks ended. Now, researchers are simply watching to see whether the virus is present or absent in a given sewershed.
“It’s more about having an early warning,” Matus says. If a sewershed suddenly tests positive for mpox after negative results for the last few months, health officials might alert local doctors and community organizations to look out for anyone with symptoms, aiming to identify any cases and prevent a potential outbreak.
Another complicated pathogen is C. auris, a fungus that has developed resistance to common drugs. It can spread rapidly in health care settings — and be detected in sewage. Researchers from Utah and Nevada reported in February in Emerging Infectious Diseases that it was possible to track C. auris in the sewage from areas experiencing outbreaks.
If hospitals or health officials could identify the presence of this fungus early, that information could guide public health actions to curb outbreaks, says Alessandro Rossi, a microbiologist at the Utah Public Health Laboratory in Salt Lake City. But interpreting the warnings isn’t as clear-cut for C. auris as for viruses.
The fungus can grow in sewage after it leaves health care facilities, Rossi says. The pathogen has “the potential to replicate, form biofilms and colonize a sewershed.” In other words, C. auris can create its own data interference, potentially making wastewater results seem worse than they really are. Moving wastewater into the future Most current testing programs are reactive. By looking at health threats one at a time using specific PCR tests, the programs mostly confirm that pathogens we already are worrying about are getting people sick.
But some scientists, like Wim Meijer, envision a future in which wastewater monitoring wades into the unknown and alerts us to unusual disease outbreaks. The microbiologist, of the University College Dublin, heads Ireland’s wastewater surveillance program. Ideally, in this ahead-of-the-curve future, after detecting something alarming in sewage, his team could closely collaborate with health officials to study the pathogen and, if necessary, start combating the threat.
One idea for turning the tech proactive is to prepare for new health threats that we can see coming. For example, Meijer and his colleagues are interested in screening Ireland’s sewage for the H5N1 bird flu, but they are not yet doing this testing.
Another approach takes advantage of genetic testing technology to look at everything in our waste. Kartik Chandran, an environmental engineer at Columbia University who has mapped sewers’ microbial ecosystems with this technique, describes it as “trying to shine the light more broadly” rather than looking where the light is already shining brightest.
Such an approach might identify new pathogens before sick people start going to the doctor’s office, potentially leading to an earlier public health response. But with health officials still unsure of how best to use wastewater data, much more basic research is needed first. “People think wastewater surveillance is the answer to everything, and clearly that’s not true,” says Kirby, of the CDC, reflecting concerns from the state and local officials that she collaborates with at NWSS. Before diving ahead into proactive surveillance, Kirby and her colleagues are working to set up basic wastewater standards and protocols for health agencies. Priorities include evaluating how sewage trends correlate to cases for different pathogens and developing standards for how to use the data.
The wastewater surveillance field also needs to keep growing if the goal is to monitor and contribute to global health, with more sites contributing data and more scientists to analyze it. All of this work requires sustained funding.
The CDC’s program so far has been funded by COVID-era legislation and will run out of money in 2025. While wastewater surveillance is more cost-effective than other types of testing, it still requires a lot of resources. Washington’s state health department, for example, paid Biobot more than $500,000 for a one-year sewage testing contract, while the CDC has paid the company more than $23 million since 2020 for its work with NWSS.
For the last few years, wastewater surveillance has been a giant, messy group project. Scientists have collaborated across fields and locations, across private and public institutions, through Zoom calls and through poop samples shipped on ice. They’ve shown that waste might hold the key to a new way of tracking our collective health.
A lot of unanswered questions remain, and it could be some time before your local sewer can tell you exactly what disease risks you might be facing. But COVID-19 pushed thousands of experts to look into their toilets and start asking those questions. “Now, everyone’s a believer,” says Driver, of ASU. “Everyone’s doing the work.”
