Covid: Sewage may be tested for data
Researchers from the Polytechnique hope to test Montreal sewage for coronavirus, in emulation of Ottawa scientists doing this at their treatment plant.
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Kate
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Raymond Lutz 19:08 on 2020-10-25 Permalink
Geez, about time… In mid-April I wrote ¨We’ll have to implement NPIs: non-pharmaceutical interventions, ie social distancing, mandatory masks wearing, soft lockdowns, hard lockdowns. All this but at a finer level: municipalities should decide actions rather than provincial governments. At a finer time scale, too. And periodically everything most stop or slow down LOCALLY. How to know when and how hard? Constant sewage monitoring for viral detection in each community. ¨ Yes, I’m citing myself, ce n’est pas très élégant, je sais… 😎
Blork 20:34 on 2020-10-25 Permalink
Asking sincerely: what’s the benefit? We know the virus is here, and lots of it. So what’s the big advantage of having sewage testing confirm what we already know?
Kate 21:19 on 2020-10-25 Permalink
Raymond Lutz may have a better answer than this, but I imagine if they discovered a large discrepancy between the number of cases based on reported test results vs. the detected virus load in sewage, it might reveal something useful about the level of unsymptomatic contagion in the populace. Also, do we even know how much of this virus exits down the pipes?
Information on this thing can’t hurt, and this disease is so new, you never know what piece of data might turn out to be important.
dmdiem 21:21 on 2020-10-25 Permalink
Viral count in sewage can give a better picture of the infection rate in a neighbourhood because its includes people who are asymptomatic, presymptomatic, have mild symptoms and don’t get tested, as well as people who can’t or won’t get tested.
So if regular testing shows only a few case, but the sewage count shows a massive increase, officials know that things are about to get bad and can prepare accordingly. Everything from warning the hospitals to prepare so they can adjust staffing and supplies, to issuing a full shelter in place lockdown.
It also arms regular folk with better information so they can live their lives as normally as possible within their own personal risk tolerance.
dmdiem 21:23 on 2020-10-25 Permalink
yeah… what kate said. damn my slow typing sausage fingers.
Kate 21:26 on 2020-10-25 Permalink
No, you put it well, I wasn’t even thinking about the people who might refuse to be tested.
Meezly 08:27 on 2020-10-26 Permalink
Sewage can really tell a lot about what’s going on, esp. if you’ve been collecting samples before the pandemic. This has already been trending in Europe and Australia! It’s good we’re finally wading in. https://globalnews.ca/news/7119856/coronavirus-sewage-barcelona-march-2019/
Kate 10:29 on 2020-10-26 Permalink
finally wading in.
Ew.
Meezly 19:34 on 2020-10-26 Permalink
So pleased you noticed my pun 🙂