Coronavirus: Onondaga County plans to track virus in sewer system

Apr 13, 2020

https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/04/coronavirus-onondaga-county-plans-to-track-virus-in-sewage.html

Onondaga County hopes to track the spread of the novel coronavirus by looking for the virus in sewage, County Executive Ryan McMahon today.

McMahon said at his daily briefing that the county is looking to team up with Syracuse University for the analysis. McMahon said tracking the virus in each of the county’s six treatment plants could help find hot spots where the most COVID-19 cases are.

A study of a large Massachusetts wastewater treatment plant found much higher levels of the virus than expected, suggesting that the number of people infected with the virus was higher than the count of confirmed cases. The study was done by researchers at several universities, including Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Buffalo.