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News about coronavirus in Florida and around the world is constantly emerging. It's hard to stay on top of it all but Health News Florida can help. Our responsibility is to keep you informed, and to help discern what’s important for your family as you make what could be life-saving decisions.

Sewage Can Help Track Pandemic Virus Trends

In this undated photo provided by Biobot in June 2020 technicians take a sewage sample.
Biobot via AP
/
The Florida Channel
In this undated photo provided by Biobot in June 2020 technicians take a sewage sample.

Research is indicating that sewage can help reveal trends in pandemic virus outbreaks, and health officials are taking note.

Genetic material from the virus can be found in the stools of many infected people, so the collected waste from a community's bathrooms can be sampled at wastewater treatment plants to measure that signal.

Researchers say the results can't yet reliably indicate how many infected people live in a community, but they can indicate if that number is rising or falling. And that indication can arrive days before such trends show up by standard testing or hospitalizations.

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