The CDC rates Texas "very high" for COVID in its wastewater. No other state is in that top group. Mississippi is the closest, one step down at "high."

That rating comes from CDC wastewater data dated Aug. 31. KISS-FM El Paso reported it on Sept. 2.

A separate set of CDC numbers told a similar story days before. As of Aug. 26, the CDC said COVID was growing or likely growing in 48 states. Two held flat. Not one was going down. The CDC puts the odds that the national outbreak is growing at more than 99 percent.

One note on that count. WFTV reported the flat two were Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. Iowa turned in no data at all.

Here is the idea behind sewer testing. Cities test the water that leaves toilets, showers and sinks. People shed the virus before they feel sick. They shed it even if they never buy a test. So the water can catch a wave early. It does not care who got tested.

One caution on the Texas rating. It is a statewide number built from the sewer systems that report to the CDC. It does not tell you what any one city is doing.

The trackers do not all agree, either. The CDC rated the national wastewater level very low. It also flagged that level as rising by a lot. That reading is dated Aug. 22. A separate tracker called WastewaterSCAN put the national level at high, dated Aug. 19. Different dates, different methods. But that gap is worth remembering when somebody quotes one number as gospel.

The CDC also tracks a number called Rt. The idea is simple. Rt is how many people one sick person passes the virus to. Above 1 means the spread is growing. Below 1 means it is dying out. The national number right now is 1.10.

Lab results point the same way. About 4.6 percent of COVID tests came back positive the week ending Aug. 22. The week before, it was 4.4 percent.

Now the other half of the picture. COVID is running at about 0.5 percent of all ER visits in the country. The CDC calls that level very low. The CDC says the trend shows which way the virus is moving. It does not show how many people get badly sick.

So the spread is up. The ER share is still low.

The timing is no mystery. Kids went back to school. Parents went back to the office. Families came home from summer trips. Everybody moved back indoors with the AC on. The CDC points to that same shift.

The symptoms are the ones people already know. Fever. Cough. Sore throat. Stuffy nose. Being wiped out for no clear reason. Some people also get chills, headaches, shortness of breath, or nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.

The CDC says people with those symptoms should think about testing. And they should take steps to keep from passing it to anyone at higher risk of getting very sick.

That last part carries weight in South Texas. In a lot of Valley homes, three generations share one kitchen and one air conditioner. That is a plain fact of life here, not a number off a chart. A virus a healthy adult shakes off can land much harder on the oldest person at that table.

One strain in circulation is called XFG. The FDA said this fall's shot should be built on that same XFG line. It did not order it. It recommended it. WFTV reported that new shots from Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Novavax-Sanofi cleared the FDA. They were due out by September. Neither agency page reviewed for this story says who should get one. That is a question for a doctor or a pharmacist.

None of this is a shutdown. The CDC numbers do not show a national emergency. They show a clear climb heading into fall. And Texas sits alone in the top wastewater group.

Whether Texas stays there is the thing to watch this fall.

Where these numbers come from. The 48 state count and the Rt figure come from a CDC trend update dated Aug. 26. It went out through the Emergency Email and Wireless Network. The CDC Rt page backs it up. The Texas sewer rating is CDC data dated Aug. 31. KISS-FM El Paso reported it Sept. 2. The test numbers and the WastewaterSCAN reading come from The Sick Times on Sept. 1. The shot formula comes from the FDA. The vaccine approvals come from WFTV.