PUBLIC HEALTH
Poliovirus in U.K. sewage raises alarm
The Tower of London was lit up to mark World Polio Day in October 2021. AARON CHOWN/PA IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
Officials in the United Kingdom declared a “national incident” last week after poliovirus was detected in samples taken between February and June from one of London’s main sewage treatment plants. The source is still a mystery, but it is likely that someone from outside the United Kingdom who recently received the oral polio vaccine—which uses a live, but weakened, poliovirus—is shedding the pathogen in their feces. No polio cases have been found and such sewage detections are not unusual—signs of the virus usually disappear quickly. This time, however, it continued to appear over many months, and several closely related versions of the virus were in recent samples. The genetic changes suggest the virus is evolving, a sign it may be spreading in a small number of people. The United Kingdom’s generally high polio vaccine coverage should limit further transmission, infectious disease experts say—but they worry lower rates in some London communities might leave children there vulnerable.
(Searching those sewers for pathogens, to open the door for near future mandatory lock downs of entire towns posing "threats" on the rest of the world. This is their WAR on 
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