SHERIDAN — If the results of local wastewater testing are to be believed, the city of Sheridan still has a long way to go in its battle with COVID-19.
“What we’re indicating is that COVID is still somewhat on the rise here,” Doug Rideout, city of Sheridan Wastewater Treatment Plant supervisor, said. “We are not as high as we were in November, but we’re approaching that…We’re really close to our November numbers right now.”
Rideout said the highest amount of COVID-19 ribonucleic acid detected in local wastewater was found Nov. 22, 2020. The lowest point was April 27, 2021, and has steadily increased since then.
According to the Wyoming Department of Health, the average concentration of the COVID RNA per person in Sheridan County is currently 7.8. This is the seventh-highest of the 25 cities and towns reporting to the state, behind Riverton (8.7); Worland (8.6); Laramie (8.5); Green River (8.4); Gillette (8.3); and Cowley (8.3).
As of Sept. 21, there were 216 active COVID-19 cases in Sheridan County with 13 individuals hospitalized, according to Sheridan County COVID-19 Public Information Officer Jennifer Graves. Five of those patients were in the ICU while one was on a ventilator. A total of 31 cases were diagnosed in the last 24 hours.
The Sheridan Wastewater Treatment Plant samples and sends 100 milliliters of wastewater to WDH each week, according to Rideout. The plant has sent and sampled more than a gallon of wastewater since they began participating in the state’s plan to test wastewater for COVID RNA back in July 2020.
Rideout said the work his crew has done has been invaluable in providing another datapoint for understanding the spread of COVID-19 in the community.
“It’s an important tool people have, and they can look at it themselves online,” Rideout said. “A trend does not lie, and it provides a true representation of what’s going on in our community. I think the more people look at this, the better information they’ll be receiving.”
The wastewater testing initiative was implemented by WDH last year in an attempt to generate a “representative random sample” of COVID-19 across the state, according to the department’s policy anlyst Franz Fuchs.
While the department continues to view testing and hospitalization numbers as important data points during the pandemic, wastewater testing has several advantages over testing numbers, Fuchs said. Most importantly, the wastewater includes everybody in the community, while COVID tests are only performed once someone is symptomatic. The wastewater samples can provide a better picture of what is happening community-wide.
“The case counts are dependent on people having symptoms, and, even if they do have symptoms, they have to feel motivated to get tested,” Fuchs said. “Wastewater is a more consistent deal because everybody poops.”
Virus RNA will appear regardless of whether the carrier is symptomatic and the biological material of the virus is often found in wastewater before people are symptomatic. Thus, wastewater testing results provide something of an “early warning” for local health care providers and a prediction of what they might face in coming weeks.
“The trends we see in the wastewater tend to lead case counts by a week and hospitalizations by two weeks,” Fuchs said. “It’s important to note that it’s not a perfect predictor, but we can evaluate the trends and extrapolate from there.”
After a year of collecting wastewater samples, Fuchs said he was satisfied with the results. He said the data, in conjunction with the testing results and hospitalization numbers, have provided the state with a “situational awareness” of what is happening with COVID statewide, and what could be coming next.
“It’s been a really good project,” Fuchs said. “It’s not the be-all and end-all, but it has succeeded in giving us a different view of this pandemic and another point of data for us to evaluate.”
Fuchs said WDH plans to continue utilizing wastewater data in the coming months. He also noted the department is in the early stages of finding ways to use the wastewater to track particular variants of the virus. That project is still in an “experimental stage” at this time, according to Fuchs, but could provide additional useful data in the future.
"local" - Google News
September 23, 2021 at 12:15AM
https://ift.tt/3i1VS1h
COVID still on rise according to local testing - The Sheridan Press
"local" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2WoMCc3
https://ift.tt/2KVQLik
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "COVID still on rise according to local testing - The Sheridan Press"
Post a Comment