Covid and the Boston sewers.

[Tomconroy]

Apparently a group at MIT has developed a very accurate way of determine the spread of Covid. They can measure it by sampling at waste treatment plants. The system will anticipate the results of actual tests by a week or more and doesn't suffer the bias resulting from a self selecting group who opt for PCR tests. Here is a link to the most recent results. You can tell where things are headed:

https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm

I read an article that this new technology will have all sorts of uses: determining levels of drug use, what types of drugs. Apparently it will even be able to measure levels of stress in the community. I guess it's progress.

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/12/23/boston-covid-sewage-studies/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Best reading of poo data since Henry VIII's physicians

Don't raise a stink! It's mind over technology.

[Enter stage left]

2. I don't know...

sounds like a very shitty type of science to me.

[Skittles]

11. yes

downright crappy

[oregonjen]

3. Not to brag, but Oregon State University was doing this back in 10/2020

and brought this testing throughout Oregon.
https://cbee.oregonstate.edu/node/847

[AZSkiffyGeek]

5. University of Arizona was as well

I’m not sure how much it’s spread throughout AZ, what with our governor, but they were testing the dorms on campus.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

7. University of Arizona was as well

I’m not sure how much it’s spread throughout AZ, what with our governor, but they were testing the dorms on campus.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. I think it was April of 2020 that Canadian cities (Montreal and Halifax?) were doing that

... but perhaps not quite that early. One doesn't always note date of report when remembering a factoid.

[RKP5637]

6. Don't poop into sewers! They might trace your DNA back to you!

[smirkymonkey]

8. Thank you for this, Tom!

I live here in Boston and I am glad that we are at the forefront of such bio-data.

I had an actual PCR test about a week and a half ago at MGH (negative) and then a rapid home test when I went up to Maine for Christmas - also negative (my mom and dad came i frarom NY, and my mom is going through chemo, so it was important that we were all negative, which we were).

I haven't been feeling well since I left ME (not Covid symptoms, just stomach issues, achiness, etc.) so I have not left my apartment at all. I am feeling better than when I left, but that was an awful trip!

[Tomconroy]

9. I won't start a fight over who was first but the Boston data

Begins in early March 2020, the early days of Covid.

[karynnj]

12. Burlington, VT mentioned Europe and Boston when it started in August 2020.

[panader0]

10. I have a septic tank. No one will analyzing my poop!