As a virologist, I spend my days thinking about how to detect outbreaks of coronaviruses, mpox, West Nile and other pathogens early enough to stop them. Right now, I’m concerned about Canada’s awful flu season and the fact that we recently lost our measles-elimination status. But mostly, I’m terrified of what’s unfolding south of the border.

The consequences of the Trump administration’s cuts to the CDC and NIH will extend far beyond America. Those agencies form the backbone of North America’s infectious-disease surveillance. They track variants, monitor cross-border spread and feed data into global systems coordinated by the World Health Organization, helping everyone on Earth prepare. When those programs are dismantled, Canada loses key warning signs of influenza, RSV, measles and whatever diseases are coming next.

It’s a grim picture: we’ll detect and respond to devastating outbreaks slower than we should. Canada’s intensely overcrowded ERs will bear the brunt of this delay, making wait times even longer. (As of last summer, the shortest were in Newfoundland and Labrador, at roughly three hours.) The country’s research capacity will erode, because surveillance data is what we use to spot new, unknown viruses and build out public-health policy. As the U.S. becomes a less reliable teammate in data-gathering, we should strengthen our own independent methods. The fastest, cheapest and most effective way to do that is through wastewater.