Last night someone suggested that tracking COVID-19 cases was sort of pointless these days because so many people do home testing that never shows up in national statistics. That's true, and several readers mentioned that sewage testing is the latest and greatest method for tracking COVID according to those in the know.
That got me curious, so I headed over to the CDC site and played around on their wastewater surveillance page. I wasn't able to make a lot of sense out of it, so instead I zoomed into California and then to Orange County to see how things were going in my neck of the woods:
Is sewershed 299 the only site that shows evidence of COVID? Or is it the only testing site in Orange County? I'm not sure, but it looks like levels are very low with just a bit of an uptick starting in late April.
So then I went to the California state water board site and checked in with them:
It looks about the same: COVID levels in wastewater are very low in Orange County, but took a tick upward toward the end of April.
So that's that. I may try to make more sense of the data later on, but this is it for now. Click the links if you want to check out your own local area.
It's a small upward tick, but it's a small upward tick that's happening everywhere. That's the concerning bit.
Sort of inevitable though wasn’t it, based on loosening of masking requirements etc.? Also, large chunks of my family got it based on children/grandchildren bringing it home from school. The question is how far up it will tick.
I am no longer concerned with the transmissibility of covid. Instead, I am more concerned about its virulence since about everyone will get it sooner or later.
Here in the DC area the uptick has caused my agency to restate their protocols for safety in an all staff e-mail and I've not heard any rumblings about "return to work" in a bunch of weeks. Given my agency has some SMEs on this subject, I figure they know what's going on and are acting accordingly as they have been since March 2020.
Then it stops.....everywhere. You still don't get it.
Small upward tick relative to January's Omicron outbreak, but look at August 2021.
But what was it like around you last August, Kevin? Around here we had a lot of sick people and crowded hospitals last summer when wastewater COVID numbers were at the level they are now.
You're past that point now, in terms of number of cases, it's just a question of how many people are going to the hospital, now?
If the MAGA folks come to realize that the gummint is sticking its spying nose into, er, their sewage, they'll all be digging holes in the backyard to avoid using the municipal sewer system.
I would imagine many have septic tanks. How would one sample those?
Maga....please, Republicans spy all the time, on their own constituents.
Wastewater was actually a known method of tracking Covid since pretty early in the pandemic, but with all the focus on tracking test results people stopped following it. (And from what I understand, only some places have this data / make it publicly available.) But it's another useful tool in our arsenal.
Wastewater surveillance is less about quantitatively tracking infections and more about qualitatively warning about a surge of infections. After all, viral loads of two people infected at the same time are not at the same level even if they have the same symptoms and same severity.
But, if the volume of viral particles has doubled, that's a big signal of a wave.
Mask Recommendations are now popping up in CA, NY and parts of New England.
We are now seeing BA 1.12.5(?) which is the 5th variation of Omicron. This is astonishingly quick.
I am seeing more masks being worn in more places myself. The Mrs and I never stopped while in stores.
It's BA.2.12.1 that is spreading fast in the US, resulting in indoor mask recommendations.
BA.4 and BA.5 are negligible in the US right now (under 1%).