Using Wastewater to Monitor COVID-19 Spread

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020. One year after the announcement, researchers, scientists, and innovators are still working hard to find effective ways to detect, contain, and treat the COVID-19 outbreak. . The public health directive recommends precautions such as staying away from social interactions, washing hands frequently with soap, and isolating people who have been exposed to the virus. Unless absolutely necessary, many countries still require that people stay home and avoid going out. Many pharmaceutical companies have announced successful vaccine development. However, problems related to safe transport conditions, cost, and effectiveness of these vaccines can delay the spread of vaccines to people around the world. The effectiveness of drugs against COVID-19 is still questionable. When the antiviral drug Remdesivir was found to reduce the severity of COVID-19, they made headlines. Drugs recommended for safe use must be tested and approved. In general, they pose the same challenges as vaccines, limiting their availability to the public. Therefore, in the future, buying over-the-counter drugs for COVID-19 may be as common as buying personal care products.

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This may make COVID-19 as common as the flu, but for now, fraternity health organizations need to focus their efforts on better predicting, monitoring, and controlling outbreaks. Scientists are investigating the possibility of using COVID-19 detection in wastewater as an effective method. Methods to predict and prevent outbreaks in the community. To this end, wastewater from sewage treatment plants must be collected and analyzed regularly to discover the amount of COVID-19 viruses present in it. Companies that provide waste management services help collect and transport wastewater safely to the laboratory. Before laboratory testing begins, wastewater must be analyzed and treated to use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify COVID-19 ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the sample. The results of these wastewater treatment laboratory tests were then used to track trends in COVID-19 activity in the community. Research on the reasons for this method has shown that many people with COVID-19 have contracted the virus in their stools even before they begin to show other symptoms. When people use the toilet every day, these viruses accumulate in the sewage treatment plant every day. The virus can also be collected from hands and bodies washed in sinks and showers. Therefore, wastewater treatment laboratory tests can be used to predict disease outbreaks by paying attention to changes in the level of viruses in wastewater every day. Observing the number of people who test positive in a day is another indicator that can be used to predict and monitor the spread of the community. However, testing is a personal choice. People with mild or no symptoms may not have the test or prefer to avoid the test. Individual tests take time, because depending on how busy the test center is, it can take several days to process the results. Therefore, the number of people who test positive each day only gives us the opportunity to review active infections that are spreading in the community. Daily collection of wastewater from wastewater treatment plants is less invasive and can be completed every day without having to knock on doors to collect samples. After testing in the wastewater treatment laboratory, a graph of the results is made every day to identify communities where the virus is spreading rapidly. These tests can detect up to a week when COVID-19 infections are increasing before the corresponding numbers appear in community tests. Therefore, sewage treatment laboratory tests can be used as an early indicator of the increase in the number of COVID-19 infections in the region.