New York: Marc Johnson saw trouble in the water. Johnson, a virus expert at the University of Missouri, had spent much of 2020 studying sewage, collecting wastewater from all over the state and analysing it for fragments of the coronavirus. People with COVID-19 shed the virus in their stool, and as the coronavirus spread throughout Missouri, more and more of it began to appear in the state’s wastewater.
In January, Johnson spotted something new in his water samples: traces of B.1.1.7, a more contagious variant that was first detected in Britain. Officially, the state had no confirmed cases of B.1.1.7, but the wastewater suggested that the variant had arrived. By the end of the month, the B.1.1.7 levels in Johnson’s water samples had risen sharply, and in early February, the state finally found its first case. It has since found hundreds more.
From the Wastewater Drain, Solid Pandemic Data
The coronavirus could turn sewage surveillance into a mainstream public health practice.
Marc Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, examining leftover RNA from samples of wastewater collected by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.Credit.Michael B. Thomas for The New York Times
By Emily Anthes
Marc Johnson saw trouble in the water.
Dr. Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, had spent much of 2020 studying sewage, collecting wastewater from all over the state and analyzing it for fragments
of the coronavirus. People with Covid-19 shed the virus in their stool, and as the coronavirus spread throughout Missouri, more and more of it began to appear in the state’s wastewater.
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Credit: Photo courtesy Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The University of Louisville has received $8.6 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to back research that could help health departments use wastewater to monitor the rate of COVID-19 infection.
UofL researchers already are testing wastewater to determine whether coronavirus infection exists in different neighborhoods around Jefferson County. This new work goes one step further, with the goal of estimating how many people within those neighborhoods are infected. If virus levels are high in the wastewater, it may be a signal of widespread infection in the community.
University of Louisville receives $8.6 million for COVID-19 wastewater research
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UofL researchers already are testing wastewater to determine whether coronavirus infection exists in different neighborhoods around Jefferson County, Kentucky. A new $8.6 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will allow the work to go one step further, with the goal of estimating how many people within those neighborhoods are infected.
Troy R. Henderson Sr., Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District water quality engineer, obtains a wastewater sample in Jefferson County, Ky. Photo courtesy MSD.
“The aim of the project is to figure out whether we can estimate how many people in a given area are infected by simply testing the community wastewater,” said Ted Smith, associate professor of medicine and a lead on the wastewater epidemiology project.
Scientists look to Twin Cities sewers to find COVID variants The hunt for new strains locally is piggybacking on long-running COVID wastewater surveillance. February 15, 2021 5:34am Text size Copy shortlink:
Some of the best evidence for detecting early signs of new COVID strains in Minnesota is being flushed right down the toilet.
But scientists at the Metropolitan Council and the University of Minnesota s Genomics Center have started work to detect new strains of COVID in the wastewater flowing into the Twin Cities primary sewage treatment plant in St. Paul.
The project is an outgrowth of ongoing epidemiological work with Minnesota s wastewater. Genetic traces of the virus that causes COVID are detectable in wastewater, which is why researchers are analyzing it for early warnings about COVID hot spots.