Health officials in Burlington say it’s only a matter of time before new variants of COVID-19 start showing up in Chittenden County.The city is now monitoring for new strains of the virus.Samplings are taken from all three wastewater plants, covering the New North End, the city center, Old North End, and South end.The UK variant, known as B117, is one of the strains they’re monitoring for.It would take several infected people for the new strain to be detected.Samples of raw sewage are sent to a lab in Colorado for processing and results are available within a day.The city’s been testing for COVID-19 through wastewater since April.“The roots of wastewater have to do with public health, so obviously we’d rather COVID not exist but because it does it gives us another opportunity to serve our community and really try to dig in and help the community with a public health crisis,” said Matt Dow, the manager of the Burlington Wastewater Facilities.Burlington is one of few cities in the entire nation to be able to do this type of testing for wastewater.
Health officials in Burlington say it’s only a matter of time before new variants of COVID-19 start showing up in Chittenden County.
The city is now monitoring for new strains of the virus.
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Samplings are taken from all three wastewater plants, covering the New North End, the city center, Old North End, and South end.
The UK variant, known as B117, is one of the strains they’re monitoring for.
It would take several infected people for the new strain to be detected.
Samples of raw sewage are sent to a lab in Colorado for processing and results are available within a day.
The city’s been testing for COVID-19 through wastewater since April.
“The roots of wastewater have to do with public health, so obviously we’d rather COVID not exist but because it does it gives us another opportunity to serve our community and really try to dig in and help the community with a public health crisis,” said Matt Dow, the manager of the Burlington Wastewater Facilities.
Burlington is one of few cities in the entire nation to be able to do this type of testing for wastewater.
