County of Macomb issued the following announcement on Jan. 20.
Following a rapid increase in the number of people testing positive for COVID-19, the level of infection appears to be dropping sharply in Macomb County, according to testing of sanitary sewage, a process which is a leading early indicator of future reported clinical cases.
The decline offers hope that the dramatic rise in December in the number of infections has perhaps peaked and that the worrisome trend has started to reverse itself.
“For the past few months, we’ve all been inundated with troubling and grim news reports involving COVID, particularly the highly-contagious omicron variant. The latest sewage-testing data that we have reviewed offers reason for optimism that infection rates have not only leveled off, but that infections are dropping significantly,” Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice S. Miller said.
Under the direction of the Macomb County Public Works Office, automated sampling of sanitary sewage is conducted regularly from seven sewage districts covering all of Clinton Township. Data from laboratory tests showed the level of COVID-19 spiked dramatically in late December, with the highest presence occurring on Dec. 28. Recent data from samples pulled on Jan. 4, Jan. 9 and Jan. 11 show a sharp decline.
“These latest, encouraging samples this month are only for Clinton Township, which has been quite an accurate reflection in Macomb County because of its size and demographics,” Miller said.
Sewage testing has been a precursor of one to two weeks ahead of reported cases of COVID-19 during the pandemic.
Original source can be found here.
