What’s standing in the way of wastewater data becoming a more mainstream public health tool
When case counts suggest Covid-19 is in check, the truth is in the toilets.
The pandemic has long been in its fatigue phase, making it hard for public health departments to have the return on investment to keep testing clinics open — and making it all but impossible to know, in real time, how many people in a certain area are sick. And while hospitalizations are fairly reliable, that indicator lags behind cases. So why not switch to the more-reliable, lower-effort, lower-cost wastewater testing to keep tabs on population-level cases?
