How Agnostic Is Your "Threat Agnostic" Biosurveillance System?

Truly threat agnostic biosurveillance and warning systems would need to detect an impossibly varied set of threats. For this reason, the answer to the titular question can only ever be that a system is partially threat agnostic. Current systems are limited but cover a broad set of issues, including traditional public health and health security threats. If planned future systems are to be useful they must supplement current systems and/or address a sufficiently broad set of threats to replace them. For this reason, we need to carefully evaluate what should be included to improve future health security via threat agnostic systems such as metagenomic surveillance. Making an informed choice about the threats included and excluded is critical; however, a reasonable decision will need to include a broader toolset than just respiratory diseases or the use of wastewater surveillance.