COVID-19 appears to be on the rise in several parts of the country, including Northern Kentucky, Southeast Indiana, and Southwest Ohio. Sampling has indicated an increase in the amount of virus in wastewater, according to Philip Graham, informatics and surveillance program manager at Northern Kentucky Health.
“Wastewater surveillance can give you an early prediction on what you’re going to see when it comes to actual cases since people will often start shedding the virus before they go and seek medical care,” Graham says. “So we are, in the state of Kentucky, seeing a growing case count of COVID.”
Graham says there haven't been a lot of hospitalizations or doctor's visits yet, but the health department expects that to change.
He says an increase from July to August is actually pretty common.
“You look at when people get vaccinations, oftentimes that booster is sometime close to the winter. So peoples’ immunity might be waning from that,” he says. “We had a relatively mild winter when it came to COVID. So, it’s potentially been a couple of years since people have seen or been exposed to that virus. Which means their immune system won’t have quite as good a response.”
Graham says advice for avoiding infection hasn't changed.
“It is never too late to get a COVID booster. If you didn’t get one before last winter you could still get one now. It would still help,” he says. “The standard things that we’ve all gotten used to is, don’t go out if you’re sick. That’s the number one thing we talk about. If you’re sick stay home. We don’t need to spread the virus. If you are out and you’re concerned, wear masks when you’re places with a lot of people; if you’re traveling.”
According to the Ohio Department of Health, in Southwest Ohio, one wastewater treatment plant in the Dayton area is showing moderate and increasing levels of the virus. All others are either low and steady or decreasing.
In Southeast Indiana, three wastewater sites have participated in virus surveillance, but only one is active now. It shows low, but increasing levels.
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