Like a lot of other cities, including Boston, Minneapolis, and Des Moines, Chicago has been tracking COVID-19 through traces of the virus in fecal wastewater.
Chicago has shared very little waste water data with the public, especially compared with other municipalities involved in this federal program.
And the city’s first report doesn’t reveal much, except that cases rose from the beginning to the end of December, which we already knew. January data is unavailable.
Eight months ago, the state put at least $5.5 million into a sister surveillance system that expects to share its first data in February.
Hundreds of millions of free home tests are about to land in American mailboxes, including locally, and Illinois is one of the many states that doesn’t require residents to report their results.
So poop surveillance may prove a helpful barometer of falling or rising local cases even if people don’t test, report or even know they are infected.
Source: AXIOS
https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2022/01/28/city-finally-delivers-covid-poop-data