A graph showing COVID levels detected in Boston-area wastewater through Dec. 22, 2021.
The current, record-setting surge of COVID-19 in Massachusetts shows no sign of letting up, according to the Boston area's wastewater detection system.
Sewage treated by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has been tracked since the start of the pandemic, and levels of the virus have been steadily rising since the fall. In early December, the data showed a spike as high as last winter's, and it's only gone up since then.
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There were about 2,500 RNA copies of COVID per milliliter in the system as of Wednesday, the most recent day data was available. Last winter, the peak was around 1,500 RNA copies per milliliter.
The data track with what the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has been seeing. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, it reported record numbers of new, confirmed COVID cases in a single day -- culminating in more than 10,000 in one day for the first time.
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In early December, Mariana Matus, the CEO and founder of Biobot Analytics, which tracks the wastewater's COVID levels, said that the Cambridge-based company's researchers started to notice a new uptick starting in late October.
"We don't know yet if this spike could be driven by Thanksgiving activities or if it could be contribution from the new omicron variant," she said.
Dr. David Hamer of Boston Medical Center told NBC10 Boston earlier this month that he was "concerned about what's going on" as indicated by the data.
He told The Boston Herald this week, "We’re in for a pretty rocky couple weeks in Massachusetts and New England because of this," noting it seemed like a delta variant-driven surge after Thanksgiving was overtaken by a new surge driven by the omicron variant.
The data is collected from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's Deer Island wastewater treatment plant, and the approach has shown it can give an early indication of a rise in cases based just on what's in sewage.
Forty-three communities from eastern Massachusetts have their water treated at the plant, including Boston, Cambridge, Framingham and Quincy. The data cannot be linked to specific cities, towns or neighborhoods, but it provides public health officials with a big-picture outlook of what is going on in the region.
Other areas monitor wastewater for COVID as well -- Burlington, Vermont, detected the omicron variant in its wastewater this month before the first case was officially confirmed by the Vermont Department of Public Health.
