Merced, Los Banos residents can check COVID wastewater data | Merced Sun-Star
Coronavirus

Residents of Merced, Los Banos other cities can see COVID-19 data for free in real time

The City of Merced Wastewater Treatment Plane located at 10260 Gove Road in Merced, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021.
The City of Merced Wastewater Treatment Plane located at 10260 Gove Road in Merced, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. akuhn@mercedsun-star.com

Residents of Merced and other counties in the Central Valley have a new way of checking surveillance data for COVID-19.

A project called Healthy Central Valley Together began displaying data this week from wastewater tests to show if COVID-19 is spreading more rapidly or fading away in local communities.

Testing of wastewater — sometimes called poop surveillance — provides a better picture of COVID-19 infections today because people with symptoms are using home tests in place of diagnostic testing.

To monitor for COVID-19, samples are taken several times a week at the Merced wastewater treatment plants. People who become infected with COVID-19 may shed the virus in their feces.

According to a news release, samples from Stanislaus, Merced and Yolo counties are sent to a lab in West Sacramento for testing by Eurofins Pandemic Prevention Services. The testing can show the presence of the N and S genes, which are usually found in variants of COVID-19.

The testing also reveals the concentration of subvariants that are being tracked by public health agencies. Healthy Central Valley Together began posting the surveillance data Wednesday at healthycvtogether.org.

The chart for Merced shows the virus peaked after June 12 and then began declining a week later. The “BA.2” stealth omicron subvariant has followed a similar pattern in Merced. State health officials are keeping a closer watch on the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which may elude antibodies created by vaccines or previous illness.

Public health departments, UC Merced and UC Davis are collaborating with local communities in Healthy Central Valley Together to share the surveillance data with residents in Stanislaus, Merced and Yolo counties.

Other participating communities include Los Banos, Modesato, Davis, Turlock, Winters and Woodland.

“We are increasing health equity by providing a leading approach to wastewater monitoring to parts of the state that thus far have had less access to it,” said Colleen Naughton, assistant professor of engineering at UC Merced and co-principal investigator for Health Central Valley Together.

According to Naughton, about 70 percent of the wastewater monitoring in California during the COVID-19 pandemic has been done in metropolitan areas on the coast and in Southern California.

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