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More than three years after its appearance, the Covid-19 is far from being eradicated. However, one of the most reliable means of monitoring to judge its evolution within the population is to study the quality of wastewater. In the United States, Boston has decided to embark on a major citywide program to prevent possible new peaks.
The municipality of Boston is launching a new wastewater monitoring program, intended to monitor the level of evolution of the Covid-19 epidemic, district by district. This decision comes after an upsurge in positive cases in the city. The idea is to improve the city’s ability to react to any type of virus in the future.
This sewage monitoring program will consist of taking samples, twice a week, from sewer outlets distributed throughout Boston, in order to be able to estimate the importance of the presence of the virus in each district of the city. . Each variant is studied, which will provide precise statistics on their evolution throughout the pandemic. These data can be viewed online at the city website.
This new program is carried out in partnership with the New England Water Supply and Treatment Company (BWSC) and Cambridge-based company Biobot Analytics. To begin with, no less than 11 neighborhoods are concerned (Brighton, Back Bay, Charlestown, Dorchester, East Boston, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale, Roxbury and South Boston). It should be noted that the first published results are rather encouraging. However, interventions will target residents of neighborhoods with high or increasing levels of the virus.