Tracking Covid: Testing and Wastewater Are Essential Tools

Learn more about these two methods for measuring Covid levels in our communities

The map shows Covid prevalence levels across the U.S. at the beginning of September, 2024. The graph comes from Newsweek at https://www.newsweek.com/covid-map-update-states-very-high-viral-activity-wastewater-1947466. The data comes from the CDC at https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/rv/COVID19-currentlevels.html.

Why Is Tracking Covid Important?

Knowledge is power. Public health officials can use Covid prevalence data to communicate with the government, healthcare groups, and the general public about risk of infection. The data guides public policy and help individuals make decisions to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their community.

How Do We Track Covid Case Levels?

There are a couple of ways.

1. Covid testing

Covid testing was incredibly important earlier in the pandemic for tracking the presence of Covid-19 in local communities. Sick people would travel to the nearest testing site for a PCR test, which is a highly accurate nasal swab test, and this process doubled as a data collection method for public health services. PCR tests are still used today to test for Covid, but have been being used less for tracking the prevalence of the disease compared to earlier in the pandemic.

There are benefits to using this as a data collection tool. By encouraging people to take Covid tests at a healthcare facility or testing site, healthcare workers can more directly intervene to…