Macomb Today

Macomb County began testing sewage to see if COVID-19 hot spots could be identified through examining human waste.

An award of $10 million in CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act funds will expand on Macomb County’s efforts to identify areas where the coronavirus is present, Public Works Director Candice Miller said on "The Frank Beckmann Show."

“In some ways, I think it could be a tool for various health departments or the hospitals or whatever, if they know a particular community or a particular neighborhood or something has a much, much higher incidence of COVID,” Miller said on the radio show.

Macomb County started a pilot program in Clinton Township, the seventh-largest community in Michigan, Miller said, with the state following the county’s lead. The sewage gets tested twice a week in seven places. But they are planning to develop a larger baseline to identify trends.

They’ve already identified some places with a high dip of COVID-19 and some neighborhoods that have no evidence in the waste.

“So I think it could be a great thing, a great tool for this contact tracing, where they can identify where the COVID might be several weeks, actually, before somebody would present with symptoms,” Miller said on the radio show. “Because you could be shedding this virus, I guess, a couple of weeks before you even present with symptoms. And then hopefully it's a real help for us to identify and contain this thing.”

Anyone who has the coronavirus sheds it through waste, which then enters the sewer system. Miller said the CDC has expressed that this type of testing is a useful thing.

Macomb County Public Works started on the sewage testing program in April, Miller said. After the state studied the program, they decided to expand it with the $10 million in CARES Act funds.

“I think this is an expenditure, hopefully, that will really allow municipalities, through their health departments in the hospitals and the health care providers, in identifying where the COVID actually is,” Miller told Beckmann.

Miller emphasized that she isn’t a doctor, but doctors say if you have the virus, you shed it in your waste.

Back in March, as Miller was watching the coronavirus pandemic growing, she wondered what her department could do to help. After a search, she discovered that Yale was doing a study on the possibility of testing for the coronavirus in sewage. She called Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel and requested funding to start testing in the county. Now they're looking to expand the program beyond Clinton Township.

“And I think in another week or so, hopefully in a couple of weeks at the latest, we will really have some information that will be very, very helpful,” Miller told Beckmann.