Covid in wastewater. I call bs on that one. Everyone knows, it comes from Chinese bats.
Vegas stats worth watching next few weeks.
“Covid in wastewater. I call bs”
It is not spreading through the wastewater.
The CDC has a sewage monitoring program, where they sample to detect and estimate the amount of disease within a community.
They have had this program for a long time (Cholera was a driver). It can provide early warning of some diseases, and gives them an ongoing measure of how much is out there over time, so they can gauge what level of response is needed. The technology has gotten more exact over time.
They also use this method to estimate how many people have actually been infected by COVID-19 (Total Disease Burden), as opposed to how many came in for tests, and tested positive (it’s been running about 2.7 times as many people infected, as test positive). They also have another surveillance program with big blood testing companies, like LabCorp. Those companies are paid to sample from the many routine blood tests that they receive every day (Seroprevalence Study).
Through the end of March 2021, they estimate about 115 million Americans had been exposed to COVID-19 (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html ). The next quarterly update (through the end of June) should get posted in the next week or two.