Covid-19 cases have shot back up over the past two weeks, to a level about 11 percent of the peak experienced back in January.
That’s according to the latest analysis of wastewater from New Haven, Hamden, and East Haven (plus a few Woodbridge homes).
Yale’s Peccia Lab has been producing the wastewater analyses throughout the pandemic, from samples taken from the East Shore sewage treatment plant. The analysis has long been considered the most accurate picture of Covid-19’s true presence in the community; that’s even truer now that so many people take home tests, rendering official testing numbers unreliable.
The lab released its latest numbers on Thursday: an average of 25,086 genome copies of coronavirus per milliliter of wastewater from July 9 – 12.
That translates to an estimated 80 cases per day in the three towns, according to Jordan Peccia, the Yale environmental engineering professor who runs the lab.
The new number is about double the figure from two weeks ago. It’s also below the 29,984 figure from May 22 and 23. And it’s a little more than a tenth of the highest figure recorded during the January Omicron spike, around 227,000 on Jan. 4.
In other words, Covid-19 is still here. It’s rising and falling, not at the intense levels experienced early, but also not going away, Peccia observed.
That may be the new normal for some time as Covid-19 continues to mutate, he said. With increased immunity built up in the population from vaccines and previous infections, those numbers have not been accompanied by similar spikes in hospitalizations and death from the earlier waves of the pandemic.
“I think we’re at a point where we’re living with it. It’s still going to go up and down,” Peccia said.
And Peccia’s lab is prepared to keep us up to date on those waves. State funding, which had supported the lab, ran out last October. Luckily, a private donor, Jonathan Rothberg, stepped in to fund the lab through June. Now Rothberg has renewed the commitment for at least another year, Peccia reported.
He hopes to build out the program to include wastewater analysis of other pathogens like influenza.
“The vision is to make New Haven a great example of how valuable wastewater epidemiology can be,” Peccia said.
Nora Grace-Flood File Photo
Professor Peccia.
Wouldn't it be interesting to check for all the prescription drugs circulating? Other than influenza, what else can be monitored?