Just a little snapshot of the #Ottawa#COVID status from #wastewater sampling. A good trend. Hope we can keep pushing it down as we get into warmer weather with open doors and windows, and outdoor congregating instead of indoors.
Wear a mask if you're in any close quarters indoor spaces or crowds! It ain't over while it's still detectable in yer pipes.
"Spraying roads with “produced water,” highly saline wastewater containing proprietary drilling chemicals as well as benzene, arsenic and radium 226 and 228, both radioactive isotopes, has been outlawed in #Pennsylvania since 2016."
“The reality is, even though dumping on roads is illegal, it is happening all the time, every day,” said Hess.
"What if you could track public health like the weather?"
In our latest blog post, Stamen designer Caroline Carter talks about our work with WastewaterSCAN to make epidemiological charts more usable in our day-to-day lives, like checking a weather report.
"In the oil fields north of Fort Stockton, #Texas, a large leak discovered at the beginning of December has joined a growing list of aging oil and gas wells in the area that have sat quietly for decades only to reawaken and spew toxic water."
“The worst thing about this one is that it’s toxic [and] radioactive #ProducedWater that is going into the #groundwater,” said Burch."
Fracking needs water (clean) that gets returned to the surface as "produced" water (not clean). A LOT of it.
"The land has subsided by as much as 11 inches since 2015 in a prime portion of the #Permian Basin, as drillers extract huge amounts of oil and water, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of satellite data. In other areas where drillers dispose of #wastewater in underground wells, the land has lifted by as much as 5 inches over the same period."
We appear to be having the best break from the #covid19#pandemic in a year, with #wastewater levels in my region lower than they’ve been for probably 95% of the past two years.
But I’m having a hard time feeling great about it. The damage to my social life has been done. I don’t trust or respect most people anymore, and I’m not sure when I’ll ever again walk around breathing unfiltered indoor lung exhaust.
And we all know it’s just a matter of weeks before that line goes back up,
Looking from the Swiss data and its correlation to independent measurements of incidence, I would recommend caution in the interpretation of these shedding data, as the implied large differences lead to quite implausible relationships between wastewater data and other indicators.
As we mark the beginning of the 5th year of #covid please note the #wastewater levels are higher on this day then they have ever been on this same day in any prior year.
HOW IS THIS “COVID IS OVER, BIDEN BEAT COVID”
This is seriously delulu. How can anyone who isn’t #BlueMAGA look at this and say that Biden has helped us with Covid?
JN.1.11 has totally fizzled out (that's the difference between how it looks in a lab compared to actual infectivity) but there is a new variant that is being VERY closely scoured for by geneticists: JN.1.23 (that's JN One Dot Twenty-Three.)
This variant has an absolutely astounding ACE2Binding ability (which means it's easier to "stick" to lungs) + very good escape rate (which means it looks different than anything else before it and the body isn't sure how to react to it).: https://ibb.co/B45zX5B
It has already been found on 3 continents (South America/Brazil, North America/California, and Asia/India) and also in Canada/Alberta. it's now being tracked on Rajnarayanan's Tableau chart for the US.: https://ibb.co/xMwRyyC
This also has so much binding ability, it has the most potential to even "spend" some of its infectivity on other mutations that will benefit its children, sacrificing it for more severity or more innate infectivity....which would be very bad.
The good news is that this variant has only 2 differences between it and what we're already dealing with. Despite the very good ACE2 binding, XBB.1.5 vaccines and prior infections with JN.1 should hold against it at least a little while.: https://ibb.co/42D30fZ
(Note: don't get infected to prevent infection. That's silly. There's NO sure way to know if you were infected with JN.1 unless you get your case sequenced. Get vaccinated and use source control. That's smart and NOT silly.)
Wastewater
Wastewater SARS2 material is rising in the US again. Not a good sign.: https://ibb.co/DGx889k
Regionally, all regions except the West are starting to tick upwards again.: https://ibb.co/dtKpRsK
In PA, the 5 stations that report to Biobot are showing very volatile elves, but Chester, Lackawanna, Luzerne, and MontCo are handling it. :canparrot: GOOD GOING. Source control keeps those numbers down!!!: https://ibb.co/JxZX7YC
BucksCo is on an uptick, now above national averages. Please be cautious and keep working at it for Spring!!! 💐
The PA DoH Wastewater dashboard reflects these rising levels, with levels especially rising in Monroe County. PLEASE USE SOURCE CONTROL. Wear a quality respirator, clean the air with MERV-13 or HEPA filters, and STAY HOME if you are sick!: https://ibb.co/DwtcNgd
Year-Over-Year
Want to remind everyone that this year has the highest national wastewater numbers of all COVID years at this time.: https://ibb.co/WP98zxT
(I changed the color of the 2024 year because the original color used to represent it was...pretty unseeable.)
MORE people are getting infected/reinfected more quickly, and you can see the general trend is for the absolute baseline rising throughout the year.
This is in addition to, on WastewaterSCAN, high levels of other respiratory pathogens like RSV, FluA and FluB and the gastro-disturbing (and just gross) Norovirus.: https://ibb.co/ggyxfBt
Wash hands to prevent especially non SARS pathogens.
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Wash fruits and veg too before you eat them!
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Guys, this is us on our way to a high tide that will never drop IF we don't use source control.
But if we do, we can prevent life, learning, and financial loss going into spring and have a LOVELY and healthy new season soon! 💐