Wastewater World
Searching for a virus in a sea of poop is one thing. Ongoing surveillance is another.
I won’t be bashful about it. Trump has led a dismal failure in the federal response to COVID-19. There has however, out of necessity, been an incredibly diverse and creative response from the academic and private industrial sectors of our society. I’m not talking about the “Warp Speed” race to find a vaccine. I’m talking about the efforts to contain the virus through testing and tracing.
One article I came across while doom scrolling mentioned the university I grew up next to; Michigan State. They started and maintained a study of wastewater as a means of COVID detection. If this proves to be replicable on a large scale, it could be a mainstay in tracking all sorts of communicable diseases.
It’s being used in several places across the country, including here in my town. Shortly before Thanksgiving and a few weeks after Halloween, the censors in our end of town detected a spike on COVID in the wastewater. That spike didn’t slow down and has continued trending up since Thanksgiving. Burlington, and Vermont in general, has been at the top of the list of states who have had success containing the virus, so a spike in a small group is something that should be taken into context. But the tool that’s being used to measure the wastewater is one with a lot of potential baggage.
Because this information is public, it could be used by private companies. I’m looking at you, the insurance industry. Knowing what’s in the wastewater could affect insurance premiums for health and home insurance. Maybe it’ll affect your credit if Equifax decides to dip their nose in your neighborhood poop.
It could also be used for more nefarious purposes. Anything that could be detected in wastewater could be part of surveillance operations. The dark side of poop. Don’t think for a second it couldn’t happen if our collective poop was in the wrong hands. This shit needs to be regulated!