Provide recommendations to community leaders or implement restrictions like limiting indoor gatherings and reducing business capacity.Alert local hospitals, clinics and other health care providers about a potential increase in cases.Increase public health communications on the importance of masking, handwashing, social distancing and avoiding large crowds in enclosed spaces.If warranted, local officials can take the following public health measures: NCDHHS recommends that local communities review wastewater data along with other COVID-19 metrics. If wastewater data show an unexpected increase in COVID-19 in a community, NCDHHS will immediately notify the wastewater treatment plant and local health department. Preliminary wastewater data have shown trends similar to what NCDHHS has seen from reporting of individual test results. This can be important as asymptomatic people are rarely tested and the CDC estimates that 50% of COVID-19 transmission is caused by people without symptoms. Wastewater monitoring detects virus shed by people who are symptomatic, as well as people who are asymptomatic. Measuring the virus that causes COVID-19 in wastewater allows NCDHHS to track COVID-19 trends in an entire community served by the same sewer system with one sample. “This can be an early warning system and allow health officials to take actions to stop the spread if trends are increasing.” “Wastewater monitoring is a new tool that will help us track the spread of COVID-19 in participating communities even as fewer people are being tested,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Currently, data are reported from 11 wastewater treatment facilities in North Carolina, but the program is expanding to additional sites.ĮCU implements new COVID-19 wastewater detection devices These viral particles are no longer infectious in wastewater but can be measured if enough people are infected. People who are infected with COVID-19 shed viral particles in their feces. This new statewide program, known as the North Carolina Wastewater Monitoring Network, is a collaboration between 11 wastewater utilities, 8 local public health departments and researchers at the University of North Carolina. Since January 2021, NCDHHS has been testing wastewater samples to look for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as part of the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System.

RALEIGH - The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services today expanded its NC COVID-19 Dashboard to include a new metric – wastewater monitoring.

Ncdhhs dashboard