Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

Yachtold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

.jp. That's Y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.JP. When it comes to a guide for your gut, a scientific American podcast series.

This is your fast track update on the COVID pandemic.

We bring you up to speed on the science behind the most urgent questions about the virus and the disease.

We demystify the research and help you understand what it really means.

I'm Tanya Lewis. I'm Josh Fishman. And we're Scientific American Senior Health Editors. I remember you.

Welcome back, Tanya. It's great to be back, Josh. Today we're going to talk about tracking COVID

through the sewers. And explain why vaccines for the littlest kids have been put on hold yet again.

There's been more talk recently about using wastewater to detect COVID. Forgive me, Tanya,

but what's the poop on that? I'm glad you asked Josh. Scientists have known for some time that

people can shed the SARS-CoV-2 virus in our excrement.

Traces of virus in our sewage systems can often be detected before a surge in clinical

COVID cases, so they can provide early warning of an outbreak.

And they can spot infections from people regardless of whether or not they're showing symptoms

or if they have access to testing.

What's new is that the CDC has started adding data from wastewater sampling sites to its

dashboard, the COVID data tracker. The agency first launched the National Wastewater Surveillance

System in September of 2020. Now they have more than 400 monitoring sites around the country,

and they're planning to add

...