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St. Clair Today

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

MACOMB COUNTY: MCPWO Launches Covid Testing In County Sewers

Coronatest

Macomb County issued the following announcement on May 29.

The Macomb County Public Works Office has launched a pilot project to determine the effectiveness of sampling and studying sewage in an effort to trace hotspots for Covid-19. The sampling process was scheduled to begin in June 2020.

MCPWO is working with Oakland and Michigan State universities in the project and will be providing the data to the Macomb County Health Department for review. The project’s ultimate goal is to provide an online public dashboard, to allow local residents to see the data for themselves.

“Providing information not only to our medical professionals, but to the public as well, is foundational to fighting this disease. We believe there is a real opportunity here to be a part of the solution and we are working as quickly as we can toward that goal,” said Commissioner Candice Miller. “This ability to detect potential hotspots will be critical as we re-open our ecomony.”

The project, which is being funded by monies the county received via the federal CARES Act, is creating seven sample collection sites in Clinton Township. Samples at each site will be collected twice per week. The samples will be specially packaged and sent to Oakland and/or Michigan State for testing. Assuming the pilot project proves successful, Miller said the project can be easily expanded to include other areas throughout the county. The initial pilot is budgeted at $1 million.

“Through this, we hope we can identify if certain neighborhoods or parts of a community where there is a hot spot. Our goal is to provide that information to the Health Department, so they can better target their contact tracing or other actions they may be able to take to reduce the community risk,” Miller said.

The project is to run throughout summer 2020 and then be evaluated for any potential modifications and then further expansion.

“Obviously, this isn’t something our engineers ever thought they would be working on, but our team jumped on this right away and put together a solid plan, utilizing the expertise of our local universities. We believe this project can provide critically needed information to our health care professionals,” Miller said.

Original source can be found here.

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