PROVINCETOWN – Provincetown officials have announced that the town has begun collecting wastewater samples and testing them for levels of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Scientists and other health advocates believe that tracking levels of the virus in wastewater gives an early indication of a potential outbreak, due to the fact that people who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic dispose of the virus through their own waste.
The town will collect multiple samples throughout the next two weeks to create a baseline level of COVID-19 in the wastewater in order to identify future trends of virus concentration.
The town will continue testing throughout the remainder of 2020, in collaboration with Columbia University and infrastructure firm AECOM. The National Science Foundation is partially funding the testing program.
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