Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, sewage systems in cities around the United States have helped track the spread of the coronavirus in real time. Now, those tracking projects will have public visibility through a tool on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s COVID-19 data tracking website, the agency announced Friday.
The tool pulls in data from National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), which the CDC launched in September 2020. That network includes data from more than 400 sites in the US.
Wastewater gives officials a way to track the spread of the coronavirus because the virus can be detected in the feces of residents before they are prompted to get tested. But, unlike testing data, wastewater…
