Sewage: New way to deduct prevalence of COVID-19 by scientists

Scientists across the globe have turned to sewage as the latestmethod to measure the prevalence of the hidden cases of the virusin their communities.

Several local governments in the US are also using the same methodtodetect traces of RNA, the genetic material of coronavirus, in fecal matter.

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The data can be used to gain a sense of how many people may have had the virus asymptomatically and are passing it through, in addition to those testing positive because they are outwardly sick.

According to Matt Meyer, the County Executive of New Castle, his county in Delaware has partnered with Biobot, an MIT-based startup,to screen wastewater for coronavirus.

Biobot is testing sewage in 150 facilities across 30 states, according to a company spokeswoman.

In its pilot 24-hour test, Biobot estimated there were 15,200 cases of Covid-19 in New Castle County alone.

These results outweighthe 4,034 estimated number of confirmed cases in the state, as per the data of Johns Hopkins University.

Meanwhile, in the Syracuse area of New York, four professors across three universities have partnered up to test Onondaga County wastewater using a centrifugal process to isolate the virus, a process they say could significantly speed up detection of Covid-19 outbreaks.

Scientists in other countries have also been using their sewerage systems to conduct mass tests for coronavirus, though they express caution on how accurately wastewater samples reflect community levels of the virus.

In early April, the journal Nature reportedthat more than a dozen research groups around the world were analyzing wastewater for Covid-19, with traces of the virus found in wastewater in the US, Netherlands and Sweden.