SEWAGE SCARIES
Wastewater samples show record high levels of COVID
Data tracking the presence of the coronavirus in wastewater sampled from throughout Greater Boston has skyrocketed to record high levels in the last few days, a “scary” sign of what’s to come as Massachusetts health officials have already been reporting significantly more cases in the last week, an infectious diseases specialist tells the Herald.
The results in the last four days from Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s study to track wastewater indicators of COVID-19 show record amounts of viral RNA. This comes after the state last week reported single-day record case counts — with three days of more than 7,000 cases across the Bay State.
The record levels of COVID-19 traces in the Boston area wastewater could mean that even higher case counts are coming, warned Davidson Hamer, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health and School of Medicine.
“It could be a sign of higher counts than it’s been, which is scary because it’s been really high recently,” Hamer said Wednesday.
Boston University epidemiology professor Matthew Fox also predicted higher case counts than the 7,000 per day last week.
“We are still seeing the effects of increases related to the holiday break and we don’t have strong measures in place to reduce the increases we are already seeing,” Fox said. “So I think we can expect the number of cases will go up. We don’t know yet how high.”
The wastewater samples — taken three times a week at the Deer Island Treatment Plant — in March and April peaked with an average of 441 viral RNA copies per milliliter in the MWRA southern region, and 742 viral RNA copies per milliliter in the MWRA northern region.
Now the averages have spiked to 1,476 in the southern region, and 1,130 in the northern region. Monday’s tally in the south surpassed 2,000, which is a single-day record high for both regions.
“There’s a lot of virus out there,” Hamer said. “There was a flurry post-Thanksgiving, and then the data flattened out in December, but now we’re seeing the postChristmas surge with a surge in viral RNA.”
The southern region includes Quincy, Milton, Braintree, Randolph, Dedham, Needham, Natick and Framingham. The northern region includes Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Chelsea, Everett and Revere.
Epidemiologist Eric FeiglDing tweeted about the Boston area wastewater data, “WORRISOME… this is not a good #COVID19 signal in Boston area wastewater. This is also much much worse than spring 2020 surge.”