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BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Wastewater tracking data from Greater Boston may be predicting a light at the end of the tunnel for the region's Omicron surge. The data, analyzed by Biobot Analytics of Cambridge, has been used throughout the pandemic as a predictive tool of sorts to hint at the direction of each COVID-19 wave.
The current data shows a massive collapse in wastewater copies of COVID-19 — averaging around 5,000 RNA copies per milliliter as of Monday, down from a peak around the start of the year of more than 11,500 copies. In last winter's surge, the average copy rate only reached about 1,500 at its peak.
Public health experts like Harvard T.H. Chan's Professor Bill Hanage were cautiously optimistic when looking at the data. Hanage said the level of COVID in the wastewater "suggests good news for the disruption caused by the sheer numbers of infections," in a tweet thread on Tuesday.
Cases have been sky-high around the state in the past week, with case counts above 20,000 for three of the last five single-day totals.
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