Track COVID-19 in Bay Area Poop

Bay area scientists are looking for the COVID-19 virus not only in our nose, but also in a more private place, our poop.

When we wash the toilet, the trash disappears quickly and is never seen, smelled or thought of again.

However, sludge, a valuable resource for public health authorities, is captured downstream of drains and wastewater treatment plants and sent for analysis by virus hunters at UC Berkeley and Stanford University.

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These poop reports are planned or ongoing in all counties in the Bay Area, but can reveal outbreaks of hidden illnesses. It also provides an efficient way to track an increase or decrease in a pandemic over time. This is especially true in communities where many infected populations do not have easy access to regular tests that do not make them feel sick.

“It’s designed to give us an early warning,” says Sasha Harris, a city water expert at UC Berkeley, working with officials from Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, and Marin County. Lovett said.

“It’s like fighting fire at the top of a mountain. If you see smoke, you can marshall resources before it goes to hell,” she said.

This strategy relies on this important fact. After someone is infected with the COVID-19 virus, the genetic material of the pathogen is released from the faeces for several weeks. Wastewater inspection can detect the presence of an infection in only a handful of individuals in a building or town.

So far, Berkeley and Stanford’s analysis has proven to be accurate, and sewage reports are consistent with trends seen in traditional clinical trials. The concentration of airborne virus seems to fluctuate with the outbreak of known illnesses.

Sequencing the captured virus also helps scientists monitor its evolutionary changes over time. By monitoring mutations, you can track different strains of the virus around the world and detect infectious and fatal changes.

Bay Area scientists recently found the same virus strains in wastewater that are routinely identified by nasal examinations, but interestingly, they also found strains that have not yet been observed in California. According to recent research.

The scientific strategies in which the UC Berkeley and Stanford teams participated are similar.

A team at UC Berkeley monitors the so-called “sewer”. This is where all the sewers flow into a single pipe or collection station, which is equivalent to the waste of thousands to hundreds of thousands.Through that COVID-WEB In the project, the team is currently processing about 30 samples per week at 11 institutions and plans to scale up to up to 200 samples per week by the end of the year.

On the streets of the city, they stop traffic, pry open manhole covers, and hang large gray cylindrical plastic barrels into sewer holes. Several times an hour, for 24 hours, the hose draws a small sample of wastewater from the drain and drains it into a bucket that is safely pushed into the barrel. The sample is then taken to the lab for processing.

“Every time I do this, it’s a bit of a crap,” said environmental protection specialist Tim Pine, in a sample collection at UCB’s University Village in early October. He pointed to the toilet paper affixed to the ladder rail of the drain. This may have clogged the sampling hose.

Since the summer, the team has been collecting weekly samples from sewers, undergraduate dormitories, and surrounding areas that drain wastewater from the University Village. This approach can also be used to detect outbreaks in other high density environments such as nursing homes and prisons.

At Stanford University, Alexandria Boehm, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and her team work with 50 wastewater treatment plants that serve cities or counties across the country.

Soon, more focused projects will be added, providing faster feedback from wastewater tested daily from eight different treatment plants and treated within 24 hours of collection. One site is Palo Alto’s regional water quality management plant, which serves Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Stanford University, and East Palo Alto. Another site is the San Jose Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility, which treats water from 1.1 million households in South Bay, Milpitas, and some West Valley cities.

In addition, Stanford University is analyzing samples from specific sewers in the San Jose sanitary system.

“This is an opportunity to look for the virus in a wider population,” said Michael Variet, director of environmental health in Santa Clara County. “It provides a potential resource for taking samples from individuals that may not otherwise be tested.”

Sewage sampling, called “wastewater-based epidemiology,” is an increasingly valuable tool around the world. It is used to monitor deadly pathogens such as Salmonella, polio, and hepatitis A virus. It can even detect the presence of illegal drugs.

Do not look for real virus particles to find COVID-19 infection. Instead, this approach looks for a bit of a viral gene called RNA that floats around the sewer system.

Until recently, daily or weekly tracking of the COVID-19 virus has proven difficult due to the lack of competence in the test lab.

To extend the processing of large numbers of samples, this month a team at UC Berkeley launched a high-throughput “pop-up” lab that was quickly set up in an empty chemistry research space on campus. This is a temporary 1200 square foot lab. Bill, Hildebrand Hall.

The new lab employs new low-cost, sensitive technology that helps avoid supply chain problems that plagued many labs during the first few months of the pandemic, and within three days public health authorities. Providing results quickly.

Stanford’s analysis is also more reliable, affordable and faster than ever before.

With this approach, you may not know the exact number of people infected. This is because the number of virus particles released in the stool is not yet known.

In addition, wastewater contains chemicals such as bleach, which can break down when the SARS-CoV-2 virus passes through the sewer. In addition, it is difficult to isolate the COVID-19 virus in the sample because the wastewater contains many other viruses.

The Bay Area team shares findings with hundreds of researchers around the world who are also developing wastewater testing technologies, and such efficiency helps everyone progress faster.