Septic tanks in towns across the United States have helped track the spread of the coronavirus in real-time from the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed on Friday that such tracking efforts will now be visible to the public through a tool on the COVID-19 data tracking website.
The data for the tool comes from the CDC's National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), which went live in September 2020. Data from more than 400 stations around the United States is included in this network.
Because the virus can be found in residents' faeces before they are prompted to get tested, wastewater allows officials to track the spread of the coronavirus. However, unlike data testing, sewage testing is a passive process that does not rely on people showing up to be tested. While COVID-19 testing has been one of the most common ways to track the virus's existence, wastewater can help communities and health officials stay ahead of the virus's transmission by detecting it early.
In a press conference on Friday, Amy Kirby, project director for the National Wastewater Surveillance System, said, "These data are very strong because they capture the presence of illness from persons with or without symptoms."
This method was utilised early in the outbreak by cities like New York City and universities like the University of Arizona, which used wastewater tracking to visualise and anticipate COVID-19 spread. The findings could be an early warning sign that a surge of infections is on its way.
The graphic depicts how the levels of coronavirus genetic material in wastewater have varied over the preceding 15 days at each location. If a site fails to identify the coronavirus after at least one test over the 15-day timeframe, it will be marked as "non-detects." It will be labelled "no recent data" if no samples were gathered within the 15-day period.
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