Most people don't even think about it, but whenever they use the restroom, they're helping scientists collect data.
Sewage from cities across the nation is being used to track COVID-19 trends, including types of variants.
Dr. Philip Huang, the director for Dallas County Health and Human Services, said in December the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reached out to Dallas to participate in its National Wastewater Surveillance System. The program has been around since 2020, but Dallas joined within the past month.
Twice a week staff at the Dallas Wastewater Treatment Plant take samples of sewage and mail the specimens to a lab, according to Huang.
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"We are happy to add this as another data source regarding COVID," said Huang. “One of the advantages is it doesn’t depend on people going to get tested, doesn’t depend on people having symptoms, this is kind of a community assessment because it collects just from the wastewater."
The results can help officials track rates of infection and monitor different variants.
“I think one of the things it was useful in was early detection of some of the new variants, and so I think it was omicron, (the city of) Houston was able to detect that very early," said Huang.
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He said the data is listed on the CDC website .
The CDC said people infected with COVID-19 shed the virus in their stool, even if they don't have symptoms. Testing the wastewater can help scientists get a heads up as to what's to come in regards to the number of infections and anticipate future surges.
