Wastewater testing predicts community COVID cases, experts say SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance accurately predicts the incidence of symptomatic COVID-19 infections in the community, data from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities suggest. CIDRAP

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For the study, published late last week in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the investigators used real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and population-outcome models to identify any relationship between symptomatic COVID-19 infection in workers in a Minnesota healthcare system and SARS-CoV-2 community wastewater concentrations from January 2022 to August 2024. 

All non-remote healthcare workers had to show proof of a positive test to justify their COVID-related absence from work.

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