A project to track coronavirus in wastewater may be able to identify the new strain recently identified in the United Kingdom, a researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia said Wednesday.

For more than six months, a research team at MU has worked with the state Department of Natural Resources and Department of Health and Senior Services to collect and analyze samples of wastewater from around the state. A news release issued Tuesday by the DNR said the team is currently testing 59 community wastewater facilities weekly and has tested more than 2,000 samples.

The data is now available to the public on a webpage that shows where concentrations of the virus that causes COVID-19 are increasing, stable or decreasing.