Scientists look to Twin Cities sewers to find COVID variants
The hunt for new strains locally is piggybacking on long-running COVID wastewater surveillance.
February 15, 2021 — 5:34am
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Some of the best evidence for detecting early signs of new COVID strains in Minnesota is being flushed right down the toilet.
But scientists at the Metropolitan Council and the University of Minnesota's Genomics Center have started work to detect new strains of COVID in the wastewater flowing into the Twin Cities' primary sewage treatment plant in St. Paul.
The project is an outgrowth of ongoing epidemiological work with Minnesota's wastewater. Genetic traces of the virus that causes COVID are detectable in wastewater, which is why researchers are analyzing it for early warnings about COVID hot spots.