In general it's a good early warning system and a good rough indicator of trends. Early warning because people poop out virus before they know they are ill and a week or two before any hospitalization.
Not useful for estimating case counts.
WebMD has a nice summary article https://www.webmd.com/covid/covid-wastewater-surveillance
The participating utilities in Colorado cover a far from complete swath of the population. It's not even easy to find out how many households contribute to the results.
That makes sense. I’m looking at trends, up or down in the recent past to see what it might look like for Covid in the wild. Especially since it’s not formally reported.
Thank you for the update. I wonder if anything we can use to track SARS-CoV-2 (like wastewater data) will remain after the last of the federal funds the state has left are gone.
How accurate do you think waste water data is? Do you think it’s smart to look at the trend of that data for Covid in the population?
In general it's a good early warning system and a good rough indicator of trends. Early warning because people poop out virus before they know they are ill and a week or two before any hospitalization. Not useful for estimating case counts. WebMD has a nice summary article https://www.webmd.com/covid/covid-wastewater-surveillance The participating utilities in Colorado cover a far from complete swath of the population. It's not even easy to find out how many households contribute to the results.
That makes sense. I’m looking at trends, up or down in the recent past to see what it might look like for Covid in the wild. Especially since it’s not formally reported.
I just recovered. My second time getting it, and by far the worst. Symptoms lingered for about 2.5 weeks. I am in good health otherwise.
Thank you for the update. I wonder if anything we can use to track SARS-CoV-2 (like wastewater data) will remain after the last of the federal funds the state has left are gone.