A good detective will look through trash to find the truth behind a story that might appear to be something else. In the case of COVID-19, that trash is the wastewater that’s processed through public utilities in Plymouth and Sheboygan.
Wastewater contains the unwritten record of infections in the population, and the Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene and UW-Milwaukee analyze wastewater samples to determine the amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus present. And those results aren’t subject to errors from non-reporting. That’s an area that has health officials concerned because people who test themselves for COVID-19 at home don’t always report their results to their doctor or to the County Division of Public Health, and that can result in reports of lower infection rates than reality. But wastewater doesn’t lie, and the story it tells right now is that Sheboygan may already be seeing the beginnings of the expected cold-weather surge of coronavirus infections.
While the CDC on Wednesday measured a nearly 5-1/2 percent drop in weekly case rates during the previous 7 days, and a “Low” community transmission rate of 105.77 per 100,000 persons, the wastewater in Sheboygan indicated a “Very High” level of virus in the water, and the trajectory showed a “Significant increase” after bottoming out near the beginning of October with concentration of virus particles more than doubling in the last three weeks.
Plymouth’s Wastewater Treatment Plant isn’t displaying the same rate of change, and although concentrations are considered “High”, there was no alert due to rising trajectory.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services says that such information should be used as an early-warning system for what’s to come, and should guide decisions on how to manage a possible resurgence of COVID in the community.
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