General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCovid and the Boston sewers.
Apparently a group at MIT has developed a very accurate way of determine the spread of Covid. They can measure it by sampling at waste treatment plants. The system will anticipate the results of actual tests by a week or more and doesn't suffer the bias resulting from a self selecting group who opt for PCR tests. Here is a link to the most recent results. You can tell where things are headed:
https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm
I read an article that this new technology will have all sorts of uses: determining levels of drug use, what types of drugs. Apparently it will even be able to measure levels of stress in the community. I guess it's progress.
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/12/23/boston-covid-sewage-studies/
bucolic_frolic
(43,287 posts)Don't raise a stink! It's mind over technology.
Enter stage left
(3,398 posts)sounds like a very shitty type of science to me.
Skittles
(153,193 posts)downright crappy
oregonjen
(3,339 posts)and brought this testing throughout Oregon.
https://cbee.oregonstate.edu/node/847
AZSkiffyGeek
(11,068 posts)Im not sure how much its spread throughout AZ, what with our governor, but they were testing the dorms on campus.
AZSkiffyGeek
(11,068 posts)Im not sure how much its spread throughout AZ, what with our governor, but they were testing the dorms on campus.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,040 posts)... but perhaps not quite that early. One doesn't always note date of report when remembering a factoid.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I live here in Boston and I am glad that we are at the forefront of such bio-data.
I had an actual PCR test about a week and a half ago at MGH (negative) and then a rapid home test when I went up to Maine for Christmas - also negative (my mom and dad came i frarom NY, and my mom is going through chemo, so it was important that we were all negative, which we were).
I haven't been feeling well since I left ME (not Covid symptoms, just stomach issues, achiness, etc.) so I have not left my apartment at all. I am feeling better than when I left, but that was an awful trip!
Tomconroy
(7,611 posts)Begins in early March 2020, the early days of Covid.