The national effort to track COVID-19 using wastewater samples is expanding. New London and Norwich are among the communities that will now have samples tested and tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Norwich Public Utilities (NPU) will soon be participating in the CDC's National Wastewater Surveillance System. In the coming weeks, they will begin providing samples of wastewater on a twice-weekly basis.
"The water has a lot of information," said Chris Riley with NPU. "And to ask our folks to take a couple of extra samples is very easy for us to do, and I think it makes an important impact to the community because we are providing information to the public health experts that are trying to keep us safe."
They previously provided samples to a similar program with Yale University. That program has since been scaled back.
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NPU treats nearly 1.4 billion gallons of wastewater annually. They serve 40% of Norwich along with parts of Franklin, Sprague, Preston, Bozrah and Lisbon.
New London is also opting in for the program. They started providing samples in early March, and the program is at no cost to the city.
"The city decided to say yes because it is important for us to keep track," said Joseph Lanzafame, New London's director of public utilities.
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According to a CT Department of Public Health spokesperson, DPH has been working with CDC and their testing contractor to cover as much of the state as possible, both by population and geographically.
"CDC has temporarily paused new site enrollment, but DPH hopes to have more sites enrolled and submitting samples soon," spokesperson, Chris Boyle, wrote in an email.
Six CT sampling sites are listed on the CDC's website.
The CDC explains that, "wastewater surveillance can be an early indicator that the number of people with COVID-19 in a community is increasing or decreasing."
Patrick McCormack leads the Uncas Health District, which serves towns in the Norwich region. McCormack said that the wastewater data is useful for his team and can help inform their decisions around access to testing or vaccination efforts.
"With the wastewater sampling, it's really a point in time test and it's as quick as it takes them to get it to the CDC data tracker," said McCormack. "It is a more accurate way of representing the amount of illness that is in the community, a better way to get it out quicker, and a great opportunity to learn from the information we have as we look at trends."
