CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WWJ) – Officials in Macomb County say COVID-19 infections may be dropping in the county, according to recent sewage testing.
The Macomb County Department of Public Works says testing of sanitary sewage from Clinton Township appears to show the level of infection is “dropping sharply.”
Sanitary sewage testing is a “leading early indicator of future reported clinical cases,” according to the department, which regularly conducts automated sampling of sanitary sewage from seven sewage districts covering all of Clinton Township.
Sewage testing has been “a precursor of one to two weeks ahead of reported cases of COVID-19 during the pandemic,” according to Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller. She says the department sends their findings to the Macomb County Health Department and “leave it up to the health care professionals to use as another tool in their prediction modeling.”
Recent laboratory test data showed the level of COVID-19 “spiked dramatically” in late December, with the peak of positive testing coming on Dec. 28. Recent data from samples pulled on Jan. 4, Jan. 9 and Jan. 11 show a sharp decline, the department said.
The department says this apparent decline offers hope that “the dramatic rise” in cases last month “has perhaps peaked and that the worrisome trend has started to reverse itself.”
“For the past few months, we’ve all been inundated with troubling and grim news reports involving COVID, particularly the highly-contagious omicron variant,” Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice S. Miller said. “The latest sewage-testing data that we have reviewed offers reason for optimism that infection rates have not only leveled off, but that infections are dropping significantly.”
Miller noted that while the latest sample are only from Clinton Township, that area “has been quite an accurate reflection” of the county’s COVID-19 numbers, due to its size and demographics.
Related
