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https://www.miamiherald.com/news/corona ... 08771.htmlSewage shows we’re undercounting coronavirus cases -- by a lot, MA researchers say
Sewage at a major treatment facility in Massachusetts showed there are likely hundreds more people with coronavirus in the area than officials thought, researchers say.
Biobot Analytics, along with researchers from MIT, Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, tested samples of wastewater from an urban treatment plant in March, according to a report posted to the preprint server medRvix. Researchers found the amount of coronavirus particles in the samples was far higher than expected, indicating there are likely a lot more people infected with the virus than the official count, Newsweek reported.
Coronavirus can be found in human feces, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers with Biobiot Analytics find COVID-19 in sewage by looking for its genetic fingerprint, the report on medRvix said.
There were about 450 confirmed coronavirus cases in the area of the treatment facility, but researchers estimated that the number of people actually infected with coronavirus is between 2,300 and 115,000, Newsweek reported. But Eric Alm, one of the study’s authors, emphasized that while they can detect the virus in urine and feces, people are not at risk of getting the disease through sewage, Newsweek reported.