Monitoring wastewater for viral load estimates outbreak size In just a few weeks, in Pretoria S. Africa (north of Johannesburg) viral load detected in wastewater has reached similar levels as the peak of Delta This at least indicates that transmission may be remarkably swift
More information on this metric can be found here. IMO this offers a fairly unbiased view into viral load at a population level which, barring major changes in the viral loads within individuals, can be extrapolated to an extent to cases or prevalence across a population.
@michaelmina_lab Do you know if with delta, infected people shed more SARS CoV-2 RNA in their feces than with wild-type or alpha? I’m curious b/c I’ve been tracking MWRA’s wastewater analysis… is it just me, or does it seem like South Africa’s CDC-equivalent is more competent than the CDC?
@michaelmina_lab OK viral load in wastewater recently increased rapidly. But how can you be sure the recent increase is not at least partly due to a resurgence of Delta?
@michaelmina_lab How did S Africa conquer their last wave? They got deaths down to a very low level something we have been unable to do and yet their vax rate is pretty low.
@michaelmina_lab thank you for posting this. where I live houses have septic & stage 3 water is used for irrigation as water is scarce. I have not found information about how long the virus can survive in grey water. any ideas?
@michaelmina_lab Wastewater measurements are my new fav out of the box response to the pandemic.