WEBVTT - Could Wastewater Be Signaling a New Covid Wave?

0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.960
<v Speaker 1>It's Thursday, March seventeen. I'm Oscar Ramrrors from the Daily

0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.080
<v Speaker 1>Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.

0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.120
<v Speaker 1>More than a third of the CDCs wastewater samples across

0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.280
<v Speaker 1>the US are showing rising COVID trends for the first

0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.720
<v Speaker 1>two weeks of March. Sewer samples can often spot increasing

0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.400
<v Speaker 1>virus levels before official test results. It's unclear if this

0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.239
<v Speaker 1>points to an upcoming wave, but we currently have nine

0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.360
<v Speaker 1>of the US population that is in places with a

0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:32.320
<v Speaker 1>low community level rating. Drew Armstrong, Senior editor for Healthcare

0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.599
<v Speaker 1>at Bloomberg News, joins us for what the wastewater is signaling.

0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.720
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for joining us, Drew, happy to be here. Well.

0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.680
<v Speaker 1>Earlier in the week, actually, we did this story about

0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.320
<v Speaker 1>the CDC wanting to expand the program that they have

0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:49.120
<v Speaker 1>going that monitors waste water in the hopes to detect a,

0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:54.120
<v Speaker 1>you know, future variants rising cases of COVID. That program

0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:56.640
<v Speaker 1>it's kind of hit and miss right now. There's a

0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.120
<v Speaker 1>lot of states that don't want to participate. There's some

0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.040
<v Speaker 1>that are but aren't really providing all the data. And

0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.399
<v Speaker 1>then I saw your article where we're already seeing some

0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.600
<v Speaker 1>rising levels of COVID in the wastewater in some of

0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.800
<v Speaker 1>these programs and these areas that are participating in this,

0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.360
<v Speaker 1>and we've been seeing cases drop right now with COVID,

0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.360
<v Speaker 1>but this could be a sign that things could be

0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:22.560
<v Speaker 1>on the uptick. We don't know. There's a lot of

0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.000
<v Speaker 1>variables at play with all of this, So Drew help

0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:26.720
<v Speaker 1>us walk through some of this. What are we seeing

0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:31.319
<v Speaker 1>in some of this latest wastewater data, sure, so you know,

0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.360
<v Speaker 1>just to back up a little bit for everybody hitting

0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.800
<v Speaker 1>this for the first time. Wastewater surveillance is a tool

0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.119
<v Speaker 1>that public health teams can use to check for virus

0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.280
<v Speaker 1>in a way that doesn't require people to go and

0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.560
<v Speaker 1>get tested or to report their at home test results

0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.880
<v Speaker 1>or anything like that. And it's great if it's a

0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:56.600
<v Speaker 1>little bit gross, because our bodies give off virus or

0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:58.480
<v Speaker 1>viral particles in all sorts of ways. And one of

0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.360
<v Speaker 1>the ways that that happens is when people are sick

0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.120
<v Speaker 1>and they poop, it goes into the sewer systems and

0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.079
<v Speaker 1>you can then you know, find samples of virus after

0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.880
<v Speaker 1>you scoop out a sample sewerwater basically and run it

0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.640
<v Speaker 1>through some analysis. That can be really really useful, and

0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.200
<v Speaker 1>what it's good at is detecting trends. It can tell

0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.920
<v Speaker 1>you that the amount of virus in the wastewater is

0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:22.720
<v Speaker 1>going up, or it can tell you the amount of

0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.640
<v Speaker 1>virus in the wastewater is going down. And the nice

0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.160
<v Speaker 1>thing about it is that it often will show up

0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.799
<v Speaker 1>there actually a few days before people might test positive.

0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.000
<v Speaker 1>So it's also really good at identifying things further in

0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.600
<v Speaker 1>advance and might be happening, you know, when people are

0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:41.560
<v Speaker 1>actually sick and going and to get tested. So it's

0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.640
<v Speaker 1>one of these things that the CDC and state and

0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.320
<v Speaker 1>local public health departments around the country use to try

0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.920
<v Speaker 1>and identify. Okay, do we have a signal here that

0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.440
<v Speaker 1>this is going up or down? And the good news

0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.760
<v Speaker 1>is that since the peak of the opcron wave around

0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.040
<v Speaker 1>most of the country, these signs have been going down,

0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.840
<v Speaker 1>you know, just as positive test numbers been going down.

0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.880
<v Speaker 1>We're at a very low level of cases right now.

0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:06.200
<v Speaker 1>But the reason we decided to look into this and say, Okay,

0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.120
<v Speaker 1>what's going on in players here, one just happened to

0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.440
<v Speaker 1>know a whole bunch of people who had recently gotten

0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.160
<v Speaker 1>COVID over the last couple of weeks and to you know,

0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.320
<v Speaker 1>the US tends to follow this pattern that we've seen

0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:17.720
<v Speaker 1>in Europe. They tend to be a couple of weeks

0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.240
<v Speaker 1>ahead of US. And Europe is going to been going

0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.280
<v Speaker 1>through a little bit of a surge in cases as

0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.320
<v Speaker 1>they've lifted a lot of public health restrictions and come

0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.800
<v Speaker 1>down off of their wave. And you know, it's not everywhere,

0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.920
<v Speaker 1>it's not as big yet, but obviously something going on.

0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:33.120
<v Speaker 1>So we wanted to look. We looked at the wastewater

0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.160
<v Speaker 1>data for the last tend for the first ten days

0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.280
<v Speaker 1>of March, and what we saw was this little signal

0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:40.560
<v Speaker 1>in there where there were about a third of sites

0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.920
<v Speaker 1>around the US where that we're pointing very much upwards

0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.360
<v Speaker 1>in these super samples. We don't know what it means yet.

0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.840
<v Speaker 1>We don't know if there's a real meaningful bounce in

0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.160
<v Speaker 1>cases happening here or if it's just a little tiny

0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.839
<v Speaker 1>bump coming off of a very low baseline. I think

0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.600
<v Speaker 1>it is early. It's interesting something's happening there, but it's

0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:02.600
<v Speaker 1>a little bit too early to know exactly what it means.

0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:04.840
<v Speaker 1>It's totally interesting. I mean, the latest numbers from the

0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:09.000
<v Speaker 1>CDC says that of the US population are in places

0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.680
<v Speaker 1>with low community levels. Rating for cover growing now, which

0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.640
<v Speaker 1>is great news. But to your point, right, this is

0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.760
<v Speaker 1>kind of looking at trends. A lot of people right now, thankfully,

0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.000
<v Speaker 1>are getting more milder cases. A lot of people are

0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.440
<v Speaker 1>testing at home, so they're not necessarily reporting those things.

0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.760
<v Speaker 1>They're just getting sick, they're staying home, they're taking the

0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:30.080
<v Speaker 1>measures they need to get better, and boom they move on. Right,

0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.040
<v Speaker 1>So a lot of these latest cases, latest numbers could

0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.080
<v Speaker 1>possibly we could possibly be missing them. It's such a

0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.960
<v Speaker 1>useful tool to look at the waste water. I don't

0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.760
<v Speaker 1>think I've I can't remember the last time I took

0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.200
<v Speaker 1>a PCR test in a way that's reportable. When I've

0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.880
<v Speaker 1>gotten second it's just easier for me to do ADAM testing.

0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:50.640
<v Speaker 1>I think that's true of a lot of people. And

0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.880
<v Speaker 1>I'm like a good public health citizen. I cover the

0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.480
<v Speaker 1>stuff the living. I've never reported my test result. I

0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.120
<v Speaker 1>don't know anybody who has, you know. So ADAM testing

0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.560
<v Speaker 1>is really good as an individual tool, and it has

0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:02.920
<v Speaker 1>a lot of good things about it. For as a

0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:05.880
<v Speaker 1>public HOUTOL, it's not good at is collecting data and

0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.120
<v Speaker 1>having that data translated into things I have a theory,

0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.200
<v Speaker 1>which is that you know, and if you talk to

0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:12.719
<v Speaker 1>a lot of people who work on this, one of

0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:16.520
<v Speaker 1>the things that we do know is that immunity to infection,

0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.600
<v Speaker 1>you know, which can be very mild once you've been vaccinated,

0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:24.800
<v Speaker 1>previously infected, that fades over time. Just again anecdotally, this

0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:26.400
<v Speaker 1>is not data, but most of the people I know

0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.960
<v Speaker 1>have gotten sicker, people who are vaccinated and got their

0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.839
<v Speaker 1>boosters a while ago, right when they were first eligible,

0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.640
<v Speaker 1>and had kind of gotten sick in this most reading

0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.760
<v Speaker 1>in this last few weeks. It may just be that

0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.239
<v Speaker 1>there's some fading of immunity while there's some virus kicking around,

0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.160
<v Speaker 1>and a lot of people who have been taking a

0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.400
<v Speaker 1>lot of precautions, who've been vaccinated, who were in these

0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.720
<v Speaker 1>areas where you know, they got vaccinated a while ago,

0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:49.680
<v Speaker 1>or there was a wave a while ago, you know,

0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.600
<v Speaker 1>they are vulnerable to infection, maybe not to a severe outcome,

0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:55.960
<v Speaker 1>but vulnerable new infection. We're kind of seeing these last

0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.800
<v Speaker 1>little aftershocks of what it could be. I think we

0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.839
<v Speaker 1>really don't know a great thing about sewer data is

0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.440
<v Speaker 1>that it is well in advance of what's happening, sometimes

0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:07.680
<v Speaker 1>by days or maybe even a week if we're lucky.

0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.120
<v Speaker 1>The bad thing about sewer data is it doesn't tell

0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.440
<v Speaker 1>you how many people are actually sick or you know,

0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.159
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't give you that kind of granular the data

0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.800
<v Speaker 1>that you would really be able to get with comprehensive

0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.240
<v Speaker 1>testing that gets reported in right. These could just be

0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.320
<v Speaker 1>small local clusters of cases. Maybe not a huge trend

0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:27.360
<v Speaker 1>or anything, but still just an interesting look. And as

0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.800
<v Speaker 1>I mentioned earlier that you know, the CDC wants to

0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.800
<v Speaker 1>expand these programs, get more monitoring for more places, just

0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:35.760
<v Speaker 1>so we can keep on top of this. But just

0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.920
<v Speaker 1>interesting how this has gained some popularity at least looking

0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.640
<v Speaker 1>into all of this stuff through Armstrong, Senior editor for

0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.240
<v Speaker 1>Healthcare at Bloomberg News. Thank you very much for joining us.

0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:50.960
<v Speaker 1>Thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez, and this has been reopening America.

0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.040
<v Speaker 1>Don't forget effort today's big news stories. You can check

0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.960
<v Speaker 1>me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Friday.

0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.440
<v Speaker 1>So follow us in I Heart radio or wherever you

0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:00.240
<v Speaker 1>get your pod. Gas