Am but less than nothing will happen when the german thinks deep into the german culture of looking at stereotypes question but if you think the future of the country but i dont blame. You yes you did seem ridiculous grandmother they all believe its all that they know im a joke join me for meet the germans on the w. Post. Water is life but theres evidence coronavirus could some 5 in it for days. Clean water is key one in 3 people dont have access to safe Drinking Water. And shortages have hit places like zimbabwe. Waiting for a water truck a daily chore before the crisis now demand to spiking washing hands frequently cleaning everything. Waste Water Testing is also key to staving off the virus and detecting a 2nd wave. Its in the water. I want to get germs welcome to our coverage not in special and itll be in use how big a role does water play in the fight against the pandemic and a moment well ask a water expert in washington and its not just Drinking Water were talking about monitoring waste water is also important. This is where it all ends up the stum harm Sewage Treatment plant the basins are full of corona virus like in a new search facility but the virus is already dead by the time it gets here it can however still be detected in the water. At the plant manager andre apapa shows us a sample. Could the corona virus be in there. That is born out of an instance on the yes the corona virus is in there especially in the sample it comes directly from the sewers we assume the largest amount of the viruses in there and in the course of the purifying process the water gets cleaner and cleaner you can see that here then there are the next steps it gets a lot clearer and this is the last step that means the water leaves here pure. At the edge of the huge Company Premises is this in conspicuous box inside is a fully automatic water extraction system samples are taken here 365. 00 days a year before the sewage water is purified it sounds simple but it isnt because the water contains things that could clog the pipes. In a. Vacuum pump is installed in the sewage extraction system on the suction hose leads to the sewer in the water sample enters the system through a sieve its. Over so why do you need a sieve. To save his design to keep some of the material in the waste water out of the system some of the samples are on lies at the inhouse laboratory during regular routine checks some are stored in this refrigerator the containers are sent to the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in life sick. 1000 other german Sewage Treatment plants send samples there to for analysis and comparison im not to waste on the concentration of viruses and waste water its possible to conclude how high the level of infection is in cologne for example when things go back to normal levels drop if we examine it on a daily basis or several times a week we can see if levels rise again we can see if we have to take extra precautions or if we can reduce some measures to work. If the scientists calculations are accurate they can develop models to compare the measurements in different regions even if the water is diluted by rain. In the end 900. 00 wastewater Treatment Plants in germany come be on lies to painting a picture of the coronaviruses expansion and for more lets bring in peter drew that hes chief executive officer at the Water Research foundation in washington d. C. Good to have you with us. Let me start with the connection between waste water and the virus we heard that the virus found in sewage is always dead is that true or could it still be contagious we have never actually found live virus in the sewage so we dont have any any. Evidence that the virus is actually contagious in sewage at the same time we want to be careful and make sure that sewage workers are using personal protective equipment because we know there are other pathogens in sewage and of course because wastewater tracing is already done for for certain drugs and so forth what is the threshold of concentration of coronavirus and sewage that would actually represent a concern but we havent seen any evidence of the cold or oral transmission of corona virus code 90 but so we dont actually have a good sense of whether theres a threshold level that would be of concern but again thats why we want to make sure that sewer workers are using their personal protective equipment just just to be safe but what exactly are you looking at my understanding is that in in testing wastewater for corona virus that gives us an idea about the concentration of the pandemic in a certain area is that correct. That is correct and wastewater has a story to tell about the health of the community and so what were testing wastewater what were testing for is the genetic signal of the virus the r. N. A. So were not testing the virus itself and we have found that that unit excel you know is very closely correlated with the presence of disease in communities so it does provide the opportunity to track the progress of the pen demick in communities so you would say this is a pretty accurate indication to go by also perhaps to introduce new lock downs if necessary but we think this information is very helpful to supplement the information we have from clinical testing its not a substitute for clinical testing but the importance of this information is that it can provide an Early Warning in fact there have been a number of studies that have shown that the genetic signal in wastewater was seen as much as a week before the 1st clinical case was identified in a community and so we think it does provide very Important Information of course you need water in order to get that information you need waste and water and unfortunately in some parts of the war well water is a scarce commodity also due to climate change. What chance do people that an arid areas lets say in africa also in parts of asia half in the fight against coronavirus. This is a very significant challenge and were currently working with African Research partners to introduce these wastewater tracing techniques to understand the presence of covert 19 in communities and i know those partners are also working very hard to make sure that theres fresh water available for communities to be able to wash their hands and we know how thats such an important part of protecting individuals against the corona virus so it is a very significant challenge is to only found in wastewater and go ready said so far there has been a life one file and a can it also get into into clean water tap water is that safe in a very important question and as i said we havent seen the presence of coated 19 in waste water nor have we seen it in tap water in 1000 sars coby to the virus is very sensitive to chlorine and so we expect that this infection of tap water would be quite protective against sars kovi too but we have not seen the virus in Drinking Water. How are we going about enjoying some i made you mentioned chlorine so swimming pools should be safe what if i want to jump into a lake or the open sea. Well what i would say is is that our biggest concern actually related to Recreational Activities and swimming is social distancing and we know that infection through the respiratory route through the breeding route of exposure is a very important way that people are becoming sick and so i would be more concerned about making sure that people were maintaining social distancing when they were in a pool or of lake or the ocean then i would be worried about the presence of the virus in that water but these are areas of research and thats why the Water Research foundation were making sure that we get the science right in understanding both the presence of the virus and wastewater and the potential for the virus in Drinking Water other Water Supplies and their ip take about that chief executive officer at the Water Research foundation in washington thank you so much for your time. Time for your questions he is a science correspondent eric williams. What is a virus how does it were. A virus is little more than a collection of Genetic Information either are in a or a d. N. A. Protected by a protein coat which is sometimes covered by in an outer fatty the layer viruses are not viewed as full fledged life forms because they dont make their own energy they they have to steal it to replicate viruses have to invade living cells like those in your respiratory tract theyre able to dock on to specific receptor is on the cells outer membrane and theyre either absorbed or they inject their genetic code into its interior now once inside the invader hijacks cellular machinery to churn elop more viruses which which burst out of the infected cell to infect others that whole process and how your immune system deals with it is what we call viral infection and disease. Scientists think to the originated in bats does it kill them as well if they adapted to live with it bats or are amazing in lots of ways not not least because of their immune systems many studies that show that although they can carry many viruses they somehow seem to be quite resistant to the diseases that those viruses can cause we think that ability has evolved because many bat species live in vast colonies that roost in very crowded conditions where any infection could quickly wipe out huge numbers of animals and then were slowly. Learning more about how we think it all works in a recent study for example that looked at how bat cells reacted to the corroded virus that causes murders canadian researchers found evidence that the animals immune systems come to come to terms with the infection rather than trying to fight it off so they dont get rid of the virus but they dont get sick either and that mechanism likely works the same with other coronaviruses as well. And just before we go from face mask shortages to masks it literate on city streets or as in this case australias beautiful beaches cleanups on the way along sydneys coastline after this all washed up its debris from at least 40 containers that fell off a cargo ship after it also included medical supplies. Thats. Linked in biden is a savior of the forest. Because 210 acres of land in central gone at his own recall debating and conserving wood and intention how to practice Sustainable Forestry is all about training give them power and people also go out there the glimpse of the tall gotta have a ladys gum fall and cut for the. Next day w. A gets a deadly sin. And a basic human trait. It drives us im going to threatens to destroy a. Group. In part to taming greed is now a matter of survival but is it really something we can tame greed a fatal desire. In 45 minutes on d w. In the height of climate change. For cosmic. Whats in store. For the future come the books. Come from a good city. Inside. The turret like. A mug or just love. Food for the russian soul come to run steve the flames so many different loss of life the songs are something. Artless but come straight from the heart of the action and turning from birth to death starts june 18th on the w. Hello everyone and welcome to this new edition of eco africa the environment magazine bhaji by channels t. V. Here in nigeria and t. V. In uganda and germanys door chavela. Were coming to you from lagos and joining me of course is my colleague sandra to novio and hello there sandra. And hello