Harris County Public Health says individual cases are no longer required to be reported, but wastewater surveillance shows increasing COVID-19 detections.
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — COVID-19 detections are increasing in wastewater across Harris County, according to Harris County Public Health, offering a sign of increased virus activity in the community even as traditional case counts are no longer available.
HCPH said that wastewater viral activity levels in its jurisdiction are currently classified as high.
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The agency’s wastewater surveillance dashboard shows elevated activity at monitoring locations across Harris County. Some sites marked as very high are located in areas including Katy, Cypress and across the Houston area.
Wastewater surveillance has become an important tool for tracking COVID-19 because individual cases are no longer a mandatory notifiable disease in Texas. That means health officials are unable to provide a total number of recent COVID-19 cases.
“COVID-19 individual cases are no longer a mandatory notifiable disease in Texas, so we are unable to provide a total number of recent cases in the timeframe you indicated,” Harris County Public Health told KHOU 11.
COVID-19 outbreaks, however, are still reportable. HCPH said it received one reported outbreak Aug. 6 at a facility in the southwestern quadrant of Harris County. The agency did not identify the facility.
What is wastewater surveillance?
Harris County Public Health collects wastewater samples from locations across the county and tests them for viruses, including COVID-19, influenza and RSV.
The testing can help health officials identify broader community trends without relying solely on individual testing or reported cases. HCPH said the increase currently being detected should be viewed as an indicator of community-level COVID-19 trends rather than a count of individual infections.
The agency continues to expand its wastewater surveillance program to cover more areas of Harris County.