Sewer water could help track coronavirus in Cape Girardeau

Are we flushing the COVID-19 virus down our toilets?

And, if so, could our wastewater help predict coronavirus trends?

That’s what researchers want to find out in a yearlong study that will test wastewater in a dozen Missouri communities, including Cape Girardeau.

The study is a project of the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services (DHSS), the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

DNR contacted Cape Girardeau city officials earlier this week and invited the city to be part of the project at no cost to the city.

“We’re going to go ahead and participate starting the first part of July,” Molly Mehner, Cape Girardeau’s assistant city manager, said Wednesday.

Studies have shown it’s possible to detect traces of the coronavirus in wastewater and fecal material. According to published reports, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed the virus has been found in feces of COVID-19 patients, which means it could be present in city sewer systems.

Finding the virus in wastewater and measuring its concentration could give health authorities and government officials a clearer picture of infection levels in the general population.

“They know they can identify it,” said Stan Polivick, Cape Girardeau’s director of public works. “They’re now hoping they can quantify how much is there and track it over time to see if there are trends in the quantity of the virus in the wastewater and how it correlates to what we’re seeing in the community.”

The study will use a process referred to as wastewater-based epidemiology, which can potentially identify levels of coronavirus as well as other dangerous pathogens and chemical agents in sewage.

Polivick has been in touch with a company called Biobot, in Boston, which is conducting a similar study in cooperation with researchers at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

However, it would cost around $1,000 a week to be part of that study, which Polivick said the city could probably afford only if it could obtain funding through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. On the other hand, there will be no cost for the city to participate in the Missouri-based wastewater study.

“There’s no cost and frankly very little effort on our part to pull the samples and get them to the health department,” Polivick said. “Literally, we may spend five minutes a week doing this.”

He said the city’s work will be limited to providing one 150 milliliter composite sample each Monday and delivering it to the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, which will, in turn, send it via courier to the University of Missouri for testing.

An increase in virus levels in wastewater samples could indicate a potential increase in coronavirus cases in the community and could allow time for health officials to prepare for additional infections.

“And on the other side of the coin, if we’re seeing downward trends in the quantity of virus in the wastewater stream, it could correlate with a downward trend in the community,” Polivick said.

“It’s cutting edge research that’s being done as we try to see if there are better ways or better data we can analyze to help us be better prepared,” he said. “Even though our role is basically to pour some water in a jar, it’s still going to be nice to be part of it.”

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