GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Wastewater testing, used to detect viruses in the past, is going to be used again to test for COVID-19.
Sandra Mclellan, a professor at UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences, was one of the people that decided to bring wastewater testing to Wisconsin.
“January, February, March the wheels started turning for a lot of us to think, ‘oh, even though it’s a respiratory virus, maybe we can detect it in sewage.’”
The Department of Health Services launched a year-long wastewater testing study at the beginning of the month.
“The goal is to be able to focus public health resources and focus our response more quickly to bring the disease under control as quickly as possible,” said Jon Meiman, the DHS’s Chief Medical Officer on Environmental and Occupational Health.
Mclellan is leading the study in Green Bay, Racine and Milwaukee.
“Our best indicator right now of how things are going, unfortunately, is hospitalizations and deaths,” said Mclellan. “Those are the things that are pretty consistent regardless of how many people we test. If we can get data earlier and understand a trend before those trends are happening, I think we can be more responsive.”
NEW Water in Green Bay is one facility that will participate in the study. The DHS says about 20 counties with the highest populations in the state will have its wastewater tested once a week.
“The goal is going to be able to look at the amount of virus in the water and determine is transmission actually increasing, or is it decreasing and does it match with our testing of people?” said Meiman.
“Major cities, we expect to see it in wastewater,” said Mclellan. “What we really want to watch for is the trend. If it starts going up week after week after week that tells us what we’re doing on the public health front maybe needs to be ramped up. People need to be more cautious.”
Rural areas in the state will have its wastewater tested as well, just not as frequently.
“In communities where it’s not very prevalent and wastewater may be negative, if it does then start to show up, that’s a great early warning to say hey we have to do more testing in the community,” said Mclellan. “Warn people that it’s becoming more prevalent.”
Comments