CovidtrackerCT
If the Yale researchers monitoring our sewage are correct, we have around 13 times as many Covid-19 people as we did last month.
The researchers, from Yale’s School of Engineering, have been measuring fecal samples from New Haven’s sewage during the pandemic to alert officials to when surges are beginning or worsening, through its online Covid Tracker. (Click here to read a story about that effort.) The RNA concentration in human waste is considered an early indicator of the coronavirus’s spread.
Their latest figures show a concentration of 119,811.247 copies/mL as of Nov. 9, as noted in the above chart. On Oct. 9, the number was 9,104.576.
The waste sampled comes from 200,000 people who live in New Haven, East Haven, Hamden, and Woodbridge.
Statewide, the daily Covid-19 positivity rate approached 7 percent, while the total statewide number of patients hospitalized with the disease grew by 52 in one day to 548. It was the highest single-day positivity rate since May 24, and most hospitalizations since May 29.
Scientific summary: This is no joke.