Coronavirus levels detected in New Orleans wastewater have increased as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
The level of coronavirus found at two New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board sites has reportedly risen nearly 700% in the last two weeks.
Health leaders monitor the level of coronavirus in city wastewater as a metric to determine any potential COVID surge. While the amount of the virus has increased State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter tells WWL's Newell Normand it is too soon to be concerned.
“To be honest it is difficult to know what to make of that because with this wastewater surveillance you have to do a good few months of baselining before you can interpret ups and downs, and we just haven’t had enough time to do that baselining yet, so it is difficult to know what to make of this,” said Dr. Kanter.
The CDC started tracking the virus in wastewater in mid-February and the increased COVID level was recorded at the end of March.
In Louisiana, Dr. Kanter says the numbers essentially have fallen flat with the 504 new cases, 60 people in the hospital, and three new deaths.
“But nothing to overly be concerned about,” said Dr. Kanter. “We’ve had about 8 additional hospitalized patients since last Thursday, still we are at 60 which is a very low number for us. Our case incidents are about the same, our percent positivity is about the same, it was 0.8 percent last week, it is 0.7 percent this week, so all of those are essentially flat or close to it.”
