The Utah Wastewater Surveillance System shows high concentrations of COVID-19 in wastewater collected in Logan and Hyrum. Levels are currently rising at the Hyrum wastewater treatment plant.
According to the Center for Disease Control, you can use wastewater data as an early warning that levels of infections may be increasing or decreasing in your community.
According to the National Wastewater Surveillance System, wastewater viral activity for COVID-19 is high nationwide, with the highest activity in the western states.
Twenty five of the 34 municipal wastewater facilities across Utah sampled bi-weekly have elevated concentrations of COVID-19 and the trend is increasing in six of sites.
People with infections such as COVID-19 can expel pieces of the virus into wastewater, even if they don’t have symptoms.
Before wastewater is treated, operators take samples which are tested to detect and report on infections circulating in a community.
Wastewater monitoring can detect viruses spreading from one person to another within a community earlier than clinical testing and before people who are sick go to their doctor or hospital.
According to CDC, if you see increased Wastewater Viral Activity Levels of SARS-CoV-2, it might indicate that there is a higher risk of infection.
According to the Utah Department of Health and Human Services Coronavirus website, in the week leading up to July 24, Utah reported 72 new COVID-19 hospitalizations and four deaths from COVID-19.
However, these numbers don’t accurately illustrate infection levels in the state because of the decrease in overall testing and an increase in the use of at-home test kits.
Without detailed case counts being reported, Utah’s Wastewater Surveillance System is one way people can get a sense of what is happening in their community in terms of COVID-19, to make more informed decisions about their health and actions.
Utah Wastewater Surveillance System Manager Nathan Lacross said the system’s dashboard can be used by anyone.
“It’s like checking the weather when you’re preparing for your day,” Lacross said. “You can take a look at the data and plan around it.”
He suggested it can be used when someone is preparing for a trip or activity, to determine if they want to take extra precautions.
“If someone is especially vulnerable to some of those more severe outcomes from COVID-19, they might consider wearing a mask or avoiding large gatherings when levels are high,” Lacross said.
According to Lacross, wastewater surveillance as a large-scale public health tool to generate usable public health data is mostly a product of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Utah Department of Health and Human Services Lead Epidemiologist Josh Benton said this wave of summer COVID-19 cases fits the pattern from the last few years.
“The country as a whole has been seeing a spike and that seems to be the new trend,” Benton said. “We’ll have a big wave in the winter and then a smaller wave in the summer.”
He said one reason for the increase is the most prevalent virus variant right now is a little better at evading any immunity people have built up from vaccinations or previous infection.
He said most people that got the vaccine likely got it last fall, and the immunity wanes over time.
Another factor is people traveling more in the summer and gathering indoors in the air conditioning to get out of the heat.
Benton said infection levels are still slowly increasing, and it is hard to know when it will go back down, but wastewater is an early indicator.
“When virus levels in wastewater start going down, you can expect hospitalizations and more severe indicators to decrease a couple weeks later,” Benton said.
He recommended everyone practice good respiratory hygiene like covering coughs and sneezes, washing their hands frequently, and staying home from work and school if they are sick, even if they haven’t tested positive for COVID.
He said it is up to individuals if they want to wear a mask and limit group activities indoors.
He recommended people consider their individual risk, what is happening in the state, and their local area when considering how to protect themselves.
“I would definitely caution anyone that’s a little bit older or immunocompromised or anything that could make them more vulnerable to take different steps to protect themselves than everyone else,” Benton said.
He said the CDC is expecting a new vaccine formula to become available this fall that should protect better against the current variants and suggested keeping a lookout for updates on vaccine recommendations.
