In March 2020, Cary volunteered to join 159 other wastewater systems in 30 states in participating in a one-month pilot of a year-long study to determine whether the evidence of COVID-19 markers can be found in sewer systems, and, if so, how this data might be helpful in responding to the pandemic.

While the CDC says that the data cannot be used to determine the total number of infected persons in a community or the percent of the population that is infected, Cary has been providing wastewater samples to researchers working toward reliable scientific models since April of 2020 with the hopes that it can one day serve as an “early warning” tool for COVID spikes and outbreaks.

We’ve notified Wake County and State officials of the pilot project, and the availability of the Cary data should it prove helpful to them in the future.

Cary spent $43,620 to have its wastewater tested in support of the research.

The study was conducted by Biobot, MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital with the full knowledge of the Centers for Disease Control.

Goals of the Study

The COVID-19 virus is shed from human beings through the person’s stool, which, when flushed down the toilet, is carried through the sewage collection system to a wastewater treatment plant.

The study’s researchers believe that testing wastewater for COVID-19 markers may serve as another indicator of whether the virus is in the region served by the wastewater collection system.

Researchers expect to find COVID-19 evidence in the wastewater stream where hospitals and nursing homes are present, since these are places where health officials have and will test and confirm COVID-19 cases. People with milder symptoms have been asked to stay home to weather the virus, so researchers also expect to find COVID-19 evidence in the wastewater that comes from residential areas as well as in the sewage of homes where people aren’t showing systems but do have the virus.

So far and as predicted, researchers have found COVID-19 evidence in their study’s wastewater testing throughout the United States.

Because the study’s model is very new, it is too early to report specific findings, such as the number of people estimated to have the virus; what can be said with confidence today is that COVID-19 evidence is or is not present in a particular wastewater stream. 

Samples collected from the Cary/Morrisville region show evidence of COVID-19.

The study’s model is new and expected to increase in accuracy as well as specificity each day research continues.

Cary is in contact with the Wake County Health Department regarding the study.

NC State COVID-19 Wastewater Tracking Project

In May 2020, Cary began working with NC State University and a network of Universities in North Carolina and across the US along with other cities to track and better understand the usefulness of wastewater monitoring data for COVID-19 tracking. The nearly year-long study led by NC State is supported by a grant from the NC Policy Collaboratory that supports evaluation of wastewater data and infection data for potential use by public health professionals and community leaders. Cary volunteered to provide samples of wastewater from our three water reclamation facilities to help support this research and to gain a better understanding of how this type of data can be used with the new CDC National Wastewater Surveillance System tool to understand COVID-19 spread in communities. 

Comparing the information found in both the Biobot and the NC State projects will help us get a handle on the accuracy of the data and how best public health professionals and city leaders can use the information to monitor and better manage the pandemic.

Resources

NCSU: Tracking SARS-CoV-2 in the Wastewater Across a Range of North Carolina Municipalities

News & Observer: NCSU Leading National Study Using Wastewater Samples to Measure Spread of Coronavirus

NC Health News: If the Coronavirus Rebounds, Cary Could be the First to Know

CDC Wastewater Surveillance