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Wastewater surveillance shows new COVID strain on the rise

By Clayton Baumgarth

Posted January 6, 2023

Wastewater flows into the treatment plant on Dillman Road.

Wastewater surveillance has been key to tracking COVID. (Devan Ridgway/WTIU)

A new variant of COVID is growing concerns around the country of a surge in winter infections.

XBB.1.5 is said to be the most infectious strain of COVID yet, with experts estimating 80% of Americans who have already been infected are likely to catch it again.

IU’s Director of Public and Environmental Health Graham McKeen said that XBB.1.5 looks to have all the symptoms you might expect from COVID, but in a more transmissible form.

“You might have more long COVID,” he said. “And really concerned again about the risk of reinfection or repeat infections, what that might do to the body over time, because this virus does seem to attack just about every system in the body.”

According to McKeen, surveillance of COVID has dropped 90% in the last year making it harder to track the virus.

Wastewater surveillance however has been a leading indicator in tracking COVID since 2020. McKeen said that nationally, those numbers have been increasing steadily since the variant first appeared in October.

“We have a viral trend right now, and if you look at the national level, the wastewater really is increasing and pretty significantly, but the clinical cases still seem to be almost flat,” he said.

Read more: Bloomington still testing wastewater for COVID, just not as often

In Bloomington, wastewater surveillance happens at IU in the School of Public Health under Dr. Justin Greaves.

“Right now we are looking at influenza, monkey pox and SARS-CoV-2, and with having that lab in house, we can get great turnaround time and get great data very quickly,” McKeen said. “We're testing twice a week. And so you can get a better idea and picture of that trend.”

Locally, the lab hasn’t seen leaps in infection, though that could change when students return next week.

“Much more recent trends saw some increases, but not terribly significant,” he said. ”We're gonna really look towards that when school starts next week and see if that has any impact on the trend.”

McKeen stressed the importance of staying home if you feel ill, considering wearing masks in public places and of course keeping up to date on vaccinations.

Read more: Indiana surpasses 2 million COVID cases

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