Posted on 04/01/2020 10:05:12 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Researchers in the Netherlands said on Monday that the pathogen that causes COVID-19 was present in the sewage system of a Dutch city weeks before the first cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the same city through testing.
The research indicates that sewage surveillance could be a useful tool in detecting whether coronavirus is present in a population before testing patients.
Traces of the virus SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are present in the feces of many infected people. This means that testing wastewater for the pathogen can be a good way to determine whether coronavirus is present in a population.
Gertjan Medema and colleagues at the KWR Water Research Institute in Nieuwegein tested wastewater in seven Dutch cities as well as the waste water of Amsterdam Schiphol airport.
Samples taken from a wastewater plant in Amersfoort, near Utrecht, show that the virus was present in the sewage on March 5, weeks before any cases were reported in the city. The first cases in the Netherlands were confirmed on February 27.
"It is important to collect information about the occurrence and fate of this new virus in sewage to understand if there is no risk to sewage workers, but also to determine if sewage surveillance could be used to monitor the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in our communities," Medema wrote in the paper.
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
Hey, Mike Rowe, if you think YOU’VE had some dirty jobs...
Crap.
I always wondered why they don’t use sewage to track down meth and coke heads.
You can’t find people. You can only identify that it exists
But you can trace it right back to where there’s none in the system above THEIR toilet.
So, since clearly people knew this capability exists, why is it not standard worldwide practice in any outbreak to immediately start testing sewage systems, say once every couple of days, to get an early warning? It doesn’t sound like it is that hard to do.
Why has nobody thought of making this a standard response?
Can you imagine what NYC’s water tests look like? Does that water still get put in into the Atlantic? San Fran still puts waste water from the homeless encampments into the Pacific.
“use sewage to track down meth and coke heads”
-
They eventually “out” themselves without
anyone else having to go to all that trouble.
I guess so.
I have heard of them blocking the sewer in advance of a raid. Just knock on the door, let them flush, gotcha!
Man that’s some evil sh*%!
I hope purification gets rid of viruses, because otherwise "it is something in the water."
Exactly!
I use reclaimed water on my yard...it’s common in Florida... anyone know if reclaimed water is cleaned up to the point that the virus would NOT be active?
Reclaimed water is usually shocked with chlorine before it egresses the treatment facilities.
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