Covid tracked in city wastewater

The report, which showed about 50-75 Covid cases in the first part of May, was compiled by Biobot Analytics and offers different results than reported on the CDC’s Covid Data Tracker. According to the report, CDC results are normalized using flow and population, whereas Biobot normalizes to a fecal strength indicator measured in the sample.

The testing service is free, provided through a federal grant. Chandler said his department is only responsible for handling the samples and Biobot takes care of the rest, returning results within a couple days, a turnaround time Chandler called “amazing.”

Biobot Analytics was founded at MIT and is a wastewater company that analyzes sewage to provide public health analytics. The company has worked in hundreds of communities across every U.S. state and has partnered with the CDC, the World Bank and others.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is the science of analyzing sewage to better understand the public health impact of certain pathogens and chemical compounds within a population. According to the Biobot report, wastewater contains valuable information on human health because viruses, bacteria and chemical metabolites are excreted in urine and stool.

Chandler sees an impactful future for wastewater analysis, which can detect a broad range of biological and chemical markers, including Covid-19 and its variants, the influenza virus, high risk substances (such as opioids) and much more.

“Going forward, we’re working with Biobot to further examine the detection of flu and/or opioids in our wastewater,” Chandler said. “That’s not something we are currently doing, but we’re in the process of working with Biobot in the hopes of detecting flu outbreaks and opioid usage. We’ll provide more information when that’s available. It’s great data to have for our community.”

The advantages of wastewater-based epidemiology are as follows:

● Can serve anyone who uses a bathroom. Does not rely on an individual’s access to or use of healthcare, providing a holistic and inclusive view of epidemiological disease trends.

● Wastewater data represents an aggregate sample of human waste. It is inherently anonymous and cannot be traced back to individuals.

● One sample is representative of many individuals in a building or community (e.g. a town or city).

● WBE systems can pivot to track the emergence and spread of newly identified infectious diseases, or diseases that are beginning to spread in areas where they were not previously circulating.

● Since wastewater testing doesn’t need to wait for individuals to become symptomatic, seek medical care and get tested, it can provide very timely data.

● WBE is particularly well-suited to detect diseases with a mitigate outbreaks caused by diseases with nonspecific symptoms and/or a pre-symptomatic shedding period (e.g. Covid-19), or diseases spread primarily by asymptomatic carriers (e.g. Hepatitis C). For Covid-19, all active infections are captured by wastewater analysis, regardless of one’s vaccination status or the presence of symptoms.

Continuing to monitor wastewater for Covid-19 is important for many reasons, such as:

● At this stage in the pandemic, fewer Covid-19 cases are reported because take-home antigen tests are widely available and vaccination has boosted the population’s immunity.

● As a result, clinical testing data has become less dependable and public health officials are forced to rely on lagging indicators of viral spread, such as hospitalizations and deaths.

● This is why wastewater monitoring will play an even more important role in containing the spread of the virus as life returns to normal.

“We were skeptical at first,” Chandler said. “This is some high level technology. But seeing it active in the community, this is great. It’s one more service we’re able to provide. I look forward to being able to tell the hospitals that we have a flu outbreak or an opioid epidemic. It’s a better way to prepare and to stay safe.”

With more and more visitors coming through Guntersville every day, Chandler said it’s not just our community that’s impacted.

“The most fascinating thing to me was when I saw the uptick in cases from our samples in May, I received a call that someone I know had Covid,” he said. “And that person was not even in our wastewater system. It’s impacting everyone that comes through the city of Guntersville. It makes you realize that Guntersville is doing work that goes beyond our city. It’s a really good thing for our community and even outside of it.”