Researchers in california have been tracking waste water effluent, primarily at the university of california san diego campus. And they've developed two specific techniques that have allowed them to look at sewage data in much more detail. They could detect delta and alpha up to two weeks before it was detected in clinical samples. That gives you a two weeks head start if you are trying to make public health decisions.
Since early in the pandemic, scientists have searched for signals of SARS-CoV-2 transmission by sampling wastewater. This surveillance method has provided vital information to inform public health responses. But the approach has never been particularly specific - pointing to broad trends rather than granular information such as which variants are spreading where. But now a team from the University of California have created two new tools to sample waste water in much greater detail - and spot variants and their relative concentrations up to two weeks faster than testing-based surveillance methods. In this episode of Coronapod, we discuss the paper and ask how a system like this could help countries around the world respond to the COVID pandemic and beyond.
News: COVID variants found in sewage weeks before showing up in tests
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